In the midst of a wide-ranging faction within the Madhya Pradesh Congress unit, leaders of almost all prominent parties met in Bhopal on Monday evening and announced their intention to contest the 2023 Assembly elections under MPCC chief Kamal Nath. The party has also formulated a strategy to prepare for the assembly elections at the meeting.
Meanwhile, MPCC chief Nath, the Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, also reportedly did not resign during the meeting. It was said that Nath could transfer the responsibility of focusing on Mission 2023 to someone else.
Veteran leader Dr Govind Singh, who had in the past been willing to hand over the post, on Monday expressed his desire to take up the post again.
Meanwhile, all the leaders present at the meeting held at Nath’s residence agreed to contest the 2023 assembly elections under the leadership of Kamal Nath.
Jitu Patwari, chairman of the Congress media cell, said such meetings would now be held twice a month. The Shivraj government will be cornered at the ground level and to do so, the movement on inflation, unemployment and other issues will be carried out from the panchayat to the state level, he said.
After a long time, leaders of all the senior parties including Kamal Nath, Digvijay Singh, Ajay Singh, Arun Yadav, Suresh Pachauri, NP Prajapati, Kantilal Bhuria came under one common roof and discussed the voting strategy.
Further, Nath is showing signs of desperate efforts to bring party leaders to the same page after disagreements with several of them and met his old rival Arun Yadav at a temple on Sunday. Since 2018, when Yadav was removed from the post of MPCC chief, there was a cold relationship between the two leaders and they were never seen together.
After the meeting, Yadav tweeted in a show of friendship that the Congress state unit would contest in the Assembly elections under Rahul Gandhi and Kamal Nath.
Former finance minister Tarun Vanot said the Shivraj government was imposing a burden of inflation on the common man and the state was burdened with a debt of Rs 4 trillion, the state’s financial health was faltering and the people were frustrated by the daily hike in petrol, diesel and LPG prices. The leaders decided to raise awareness among the people about farmers, inflation, unemployment and other issues.
Earlier in the day, the MPCC chief, who was in Bhopal to attend a meeting of the Youth Congress chaired by national chief Srinivas BV, said he would hold regular talks with leaders and he was meeting former ministers on Monday.
On the occasion, Nath called on the young leaders to “stay away from the world of Facebook and WhatsApp” and said that they could not achieve anything from the virtual world. He called on the youth of the party to fight for the common man.
The BJP is not impressed by the show of unity of the Congress. BJP spokesperson Rajneesh Agarwal said Kamal Nath was backed by other leaders for his posts. Nath was expected to step down as Leader of the Opposition for any SC or ST candidate but nothing of the sort happened, Agarwal added.
Political experts are also keen to know how far the MPCC chief has taken these militant leaders and how he plans to create a synergy between the state’s old Warhorse and Gennext leaders.
Srinivas BV, national president of the Youth Congress (YC) who was in Bhopal, said that the BJP and the RSS were terrified of Gandhi so they launched a hate campaign against them. He reviewed the progress of the YC’s ‘One Booth Five Youth’ campaign and said that the youth wing would strengthen the party’s hold on the booth which would help defeat the BJP.
YC national in-charge Krishna Allavaru said the YC would fight for justice for the youth who were cheated in the BAPAM exam.
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