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KEEN TO replicate its Karnataka victory model in the forthcoming state elections, the Congress leadership Monday got down to business of planning and strategising for Madhya Pradesh, where the party believes it has a fighting chance.
At the meeting, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi held talks with top leaders from the state, including Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh. Sources said there is unanimity on Kamal Nath, the state Congress president, as the face of the campaign, but the question is whether the party should officially declare him as the chief minister candidate. Sources said Kamal Nath is himself not keen that the party do it now.
Following the meeting, Rahul said the Congress was confident of winning 150 out of 230 seats in Madhya Pradesh.
The Congress has rarely announced a CM face ahead of polls, save Punjab in 2017, when it had projected then Congress leader Captain Amarinder Singh as its CM candidate.
Sources said that in the case of Madhya Pradesh, the party leadership could depart from tradition and declare Kamal Nath as the CM face, primarily because there are no other clear contenders for the top post, but it would happen closer to elections.
Sources said Rahul told the leaders that the party should plan its election efforts on the lines of Karnataka. He also said there would be no “quota system” in selection of candidates and the party’s nominees will be chosen based on internal surveys. By quota system, he meant senior leaders seeking tickets for their followers.
Like in Karnataka, the Congress unit has identified issues on which the state government could be targeted, with corruption and “the failure to implement promises” picked as the top two for Madhya Pradesh. “CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan had made some 20,000 promises, but most of them were not implemented. He is our biggest asset,” a senior leader said.
Again like Karnataka, the party plans to run a “local” campaign, centred around attacking Chouhan’s “credibility” and “ability to govern”.
Some time next month, Kharge and Rahul are expected to attend a rally to kick start the election efforts in Madhya Pradesh, much ahead of its state elections due in November-December.
Apart from Kharge, Rahul, Kamal Nath and Digvijaya, CLP leader Govind Singh, former state Congress presidents Kantilal Bhuria, Suresh Pachouri and Arun Yadav, Ajay Singh, Rajya Sabha MP Vivek Tankha, AICC in-charge J P Agarwal and AICC general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal were present at the meeting.
Addressing reporters, Rahul said: “We had a lengthy discussion. It is our internal assessment that… we got 136 seats in Karnataka and in Madhya Pradesh, we are going to get 150. What we did in Karnataka, we are going to repeat that (in Madhya Pradesh).”
Rahul parried a query on whether Kamal Nath would be the chief ministerial face of the party.
Kamal Nath stressed on unity, adding: “We discussed the strategy and the issues on which the party should contest the polls. We are all of the opinion that we must enter the poll fray unitedly.”
The Congress had won the 2018 polls by a small majority. However, in 2021, the internal frictions within the party had caused a split, with Jyotiraditya Scindia walking away with 21 MLAs to the BJP, causing the Congress government to fall.
