BHOPAL: Political grapevine is suddenly rife with rumours of former Union minister and MP from Chhindwara seat Kamal Nath taking charge of the party in Madhya Pradesh before the 2018 assembly elections.
State Congress leaders, however, denied knowledge of any such immediate development or notification from 24, Akbar Road. And yet the speculations are widespread that either senior leader Kamal Nath or Jyotiraditya Scindia could be made face of the party opposite BJP’s three-term chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
Kamal Nath has figured in the list of chief ministerial probable since 1980 but has always missed the target. In 1980, the three names that emerged for chief minister of undivided Madhya Pradesh with 320 seats in the House after Congress won the assembly election, were that of Shivbhan Singh Solanki, Arjun Singh and Kamal Nath.
Though majority CLP members were supporting Shivbhan Singh Solanki, a tribal leader – former Congress stalwart Arjun Singh and Kamal Nath decided to join their votes and pave way for Singh to become the chief minister. In 1993, he again extended support to Digvijaya Singh to take the top job.
The nine-time MP from Chhindwara last attempted a shot at chief ministerial candidature in 2008 assembly polls when senior leader Suresh Pachauri was sent as state PCC president. The Congress was then fighting a war with severe factionalism within the party and Kamal Nath organised a convention in Chhindwara bringing on the dais all factional leaders from Digvijaya Singh, Suresh Pachauri, Jyotiraditya Scindia and others to prove Congress unity.
At that convention, AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh declared, “Kamal Nath hamara neta hai (Kamal Nath is our leader)”. But the BJP won the polls.
Born in 1946, Kamal Nath is a veteran and experienced political leader. He has always been a front-liner in the central leadership but has never paid attention to building a mass support in the state. But it is also true that Kamal Nath does not need introduction in any part of the state. Everybody knows him as the leader who former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had once presented as a “son”.
