BIG ORGANISATIONAL MESS LED TO CONGRESS DISASTER IN MADHYA PRADESH

Totally weak leadership, lack of organisational skill and wavering stand of Kamal Nath, and decision to sponsor Digvijay Singh as a candidate resulted in total rout of the Congress in all 29 Lok Sabha Constituencies in Madhya Pradesh. The Central leadership’s decision to make Jitu Patwari as the Chief of Madhya Pradesh Congress came as a surprise to the rank and file of the Party. Patwari himself suffered humiliating defeat in the Assembly election yet he was chosen President of State Congress Patwari was chosen just three months before the election. He took over from Kamal Nath whose loyalty was being questioned. The decision to ask Digvijay Singh by no means was a good decision. It was generally thought that he should be made in charge of Madhya Pradesh. He is the only leader who is known in state and
in the past led the party in elections.

Besides the Party suffered major setback when Suresh Pachori alongwith his followers deserted the party and joined the BJP. He left the Congress along with well known Brahmin followers. The party suffered major loss when it lost Chhindwara, a seat which it won even in 1977 post emergency election.

BJP had declared war on Nath and left no stone unturned to wrest Chhindwara – a constituency less than 100km from the RSS headquarters in Nagpur but which had withstood multiple saffron tsunamis. Ever since former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi launched Kamal Nath as the Congress candidate in 1980 after
introducing him as her “third son”, Chhindwara had remained faithful to him.

Nath lost only once, to former BJP chief minister Sundarlal Patwa by 37,680 votes in the 1997 bypoll but he bounced back the next year, defeating Patwa by 1.5 lakh votes. His wife Alka Nath won the seat in 1996, when Nath was named in an alleged hawala scam and denied the ticket. The baton passed to son Nakul after Kamal Nath became ??.

BJP had been eyeing Chhindwara since 2003 but the Nath bastion stayed with Congress. In the saffron wave of 2019, it was the last Congress fortress standing. Even in the 2023 rout in MP, Congress still won all seven seats in Chhindwara. This was the pocket where Congress ruled, from panchayats to Parliament.

BJP reworked its strategy to demolish the Nath bastion. Lacking a strong enough candidate, BJP started weakening Congress.

Starting January 2024, BJP kept poaching Nath’s loyalists and Congress workers. First, a group of Congress corporators defected. Then, former MLA from Chourai, Choudhary Gambhir Singh, who was close to Nath. Hundreds of Congress workers started moving and accepting BJP membership. Sitting Congress MLA Kamlesh Shah from Amarwada the segment that gave the biggest lead to Nakul Nath in 2019 – also quit and joined BJP. Next, it was Chhindwara mayor Vikram Ahake, considered Nakul’s shadow, who switched.
The final blow came from former minister Deepak Saxena.

Nath was left fighting a lonely battle against the might of BJP. The ruling party put former BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya in charge of election management in Chhindwara. Amit Shah led a road show 55 hours before polling and halted there for the night to teach BJP officebearers how to micromanage booths.

Nakul Nath’s wife Priya Nath told party workers, “The people we trusted and considered our own, betrayed us.” The Congress top brass – including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra – did not campaign in Chhindwara Nath went down fighting.

Besides Chhindwara, the defeat of Digvijay Singh also came as a major surprise.. He contested from Rajgarh, his home constituency. Rajgarh includes assembly segment which has been electing Digvijay Singh and which at present is represented his son. Everybody thought that it will a walk over for Digvijay Singh but
he was defeated.

Another surprise defeat was of Kanti Bhuria a veteran tribal leader. Bhuria has been a major winner. He won for Assembly and Lok Sabha. He has been Minister in the state and also at the centre. This time his victory was expected to be Certain. Besides Bhuria, Congress expected victory in one or two tribal seats.

After polling, Patwari was predicting victory in 4 to 5 Lok Sabha constituency. He was so sure of victory that he ordered one quintal laddoos for celebration. The credit for total victory in all the 29 constituencies will be taken by Dr. Mohan Yadav, the new Chief Minister who held many rallies in Chhindwara to demolish the only
bastion of the Congress.