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Journalism of Courage
They are the power couple of the Madhya Pradesh Congress, earning them the Sholay moniker of “Jai, Veeru”. As campaigning in the state enters the final week before the November 17 voting, the BJP, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has put the two in the cross-hairs. “The Congress is not contesting,” Modi said at recent rallies in Seoni and Khandwa, “its two big leaders are fighting each other.”
However, the two past masters in politics are unlikely to be ruffled. Through thick and thin lasting decades, at the Centre or in the state, veteran Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh, both 76, have settled into complementary roles of flamboyant leader and realpolitik practitioner, finding enough reasons to stay friends in the cut and thrust of Congress rivalries.
The BJP, which is facing a tough contest from the Congress, has seized on a video where Kamal Nath told some people angry over ticket distribution to “tear Digvijaya’s clothes”, as a sign of the rift between the two.
However, Congress leaders dismiss any such suggestion. Says a senior party leader, “In the list of candidates, Kamal Nath’s choices prevailed. Digvijaya Singh, who toured the toughest 66 seats, also had a say. Obviously, there were going to be arguments over seats. There were 4,000 applicants.”
Another Congress leader says the brouhaha may have been intended. “There was immense pressure on Kamal Nath and Digvijaya on selection of candidates. I think they got away by blaming each other. This is cinema directed, produced and acted in by Kamal Nath and Digvijaya… the BJP is a mere onlooker.”
Following the video that set off the talk of a falling out, Kamal Nath and Digvijaya came together at the release of the Congress manifesto to quash the speculation.
Digvijaya’s son Jaivardhan, the sitting Raghogarh MLA who has got the ticket again, also denied any rift between his father and Kamal Nath, speaking to The Indian Express.
A Congress leader says such disagreements are common between friends. “They talk to each other like that. But they should have maintained a bit more discipline as the BJP is looking for an opportunity to show the Congress as a disunited house which may come down, like it did with the Jyotiraditya Scindia rebellion,” the leader says.
The BJP has also wondered at the reason behind Digvijaya not being present at campaign rallies of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Gwalior.
A leader from Digvijaya’s camp replies that he is a target “over everything”. “He didn’t want to draw attention to himself. He is doing important work for the party and is actively working with Kamal Nath to stem rebellions; they got at least 15 rebel candidates to withdraw.”
Last week, Digvijaya put out a video denying differences with Kamal Nath.
Though Kamal Nath entered the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1980, till practically 2018 when he took over as Madhya Pradesh Congress chief, he was a permanent fixture of Delhi power circles. A nine-time MP, he was seen as not interested in politics in home state Madhya Pradesh – till the party made him state chief and then CM.
Digvijaya is three years senior to him in electoral politics, having become an MLA for the first time in 1977. While he got elected as an MP twice – 1984 and 1991 – he remained at the heart of state politics. In 1985, the party made him state Congress chief at the young age of 38. In 1993, Digvijaya became the CM, helped to the post by Kamal Nath, even though he was not an MLA at the time.
Old-timers recall how the table was set for the elevation of Digvijaya, then an MP and into his second stint as state Congress president. The other big names in the party at the time were Madhavrao Scindia, brothers V C Shukla and S C Shukla, and Arjun Singh (seen as Digvijaya’s one-time mentor).
In a move designed to keep the Shuklas out, Arjun Singh suggested that the next CM be an SC/ST or OBC. Madhavrao also favoured an OBC face, but his candidate was Subhash Yadav. In a last-minute plot twist, Digvijaya entered the race with Kamal Nath’s support.
Some Congress leaders believe Kamal Nath pulled the strings for Digvijaya with the blessings of the inscrutable P V Narasimha Rao, then the PM, who wanted to cut veterans Digvijaya and Madhavrao to size.
Digvijaya led the Congress to a second consecutive win in 1998. However, in 2003, the Congress suffered a shock defeat. Digvijaya promptly declared that he would not contest elections for 10 years. This did not mean a quiet retirement though; and Digvijaya made a smooth transition to Delhi.
In 2004, he was appointed AICC general secretary, and has since remained in the inner orbit of the powers that be in the Congress.
Even as Congress fortunes swung at the Centre, Kamal Nath and Digvijaya stuck together, and were on the same side of the many waves of factional feud in Madhya Pradesh in the 1990s – often in the camp opposite to Jyotiraditya Singh’s.
In 2018, Digvijaya paid back for Kamal Nath’s 1993 help, by backing the latter for the top post. Together, they shut out Jyotiraditya, who eventually rebelled.
The naysayers in the Congress are worried that the bonhomie between Digvijaya and Kamal Nath might not survive the strains of either a loss or win. They point to Chhattisgarh, where CM Bhupesh Baghel and his minister T S Singh Deo were once called Jai, Veeru. Their relationship soured after Singh Deo lost the CM’s race to Baghel in 2018, and was repaired only now, in time for the polls.
But others say that there is a crucial difference, in that Digvijaya is not interested in being CM – his taste running more towards ‘kingmaker’.
“All the talk about the rift between the two has no basis. They didn’t squabble in the 1990s when there was much at stake. Now, both know that winning is of the utmost importance, both for them and for the Congress,” a leader says.
So are the banter, the remarks, the “patch-up” all scripted? Take the interview Kamal Nath gave to a Hindi daily at his residence last week. Asked about his “differences with Digvijaya”, Kamal Nath got up and went inside. When he came out again, it was with Digvijaya. “He had been working inside,” Kamal Nath told the waiting media.
