Kamal Nath

The quintessential Delhi power mediator, Nath had proved his detractors wrong when dismissed as “a fish out of water”, he had adapted to Madhya Pradesh politics like duck to water. Even after the quick loss of power following the 2018 win, he had bounced back, leading the Congress fightback to the point that, briefly, another shot at government seemed within reach.

However, the scale of the defeat in 2023 elections, reducing the Congress to its worst performance in 20 years at 66 seats, may mark the end of the MP stint for the veteran Congress leader.

His choice over Jyoritaditya Scindia as Chief Minister when the Congress won narrowly in the 2018 Assembly elections was one of those master strokes that Kamal Nath pulled off. The fact that this eventually brought down the Congress government, with Scindia walking out with 22 MLAs in March 2020, only strengthened his hold on the state unit.

Old comrade Digvijaya Singh was as happy at the field clearing out for the two of them, and as Kamal Nath emerged as the aggressive, Hindutva face of the Congress in MP – running a campaign centred around him – Digvijaya did the legwork.

Scindia now is having the last laugh as his stronghold of Gwalior-Chambal appears to have gone with its “Maharaja”, and largely deserted the Congress.

Few expect Kamal Nath to sit in a corner and nurse his wounds for long, though. The nine-time parliamentarian who only moved to Assembly polls in 2018 could fancy a return to the Centre. Right now, his turf Chhindwara is held by his son Nakul.

However, the Congress might find it harder to keep down the angry voices that are sure to follow this defeat, till now kept hushed by the Kamal Nath brigade. Already, there is talk of Kamal Nath being “overconfident”, “centralising power”, and the campaign suffering from “poor candidate selection” and “infighting” to “sloppy election management”.

Nath is known for his long career in the Congress, much of that working closely with three generations of the Gandhis – Indira, Rajiv, Sonia and Rahul. In 1980, then Congress chief Indira Gandhi had described Nath as her “third son”. He was seen as a close associate of the late Sanjay Gandhi, and later of Rajiv Gandhi, tasked with managing allies and the Opposition. In the Union Cabinets of both PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, Nath held various portfolios.

While a long-time MP and also MLA from tribal-dominated Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh, Nath was considered an outsider till his 2018 win, with his politics confined to Delhi. Born in Kanpur to an established business family, and raised in Kolkata, he was far removed from the BJP’s popular CM-face Shivraj Singh Chouhan, an OBC leader from farming background.