BHOPAL: On his first trip to the BJP ruled-state since being appointed Congress' Madhya Pradesh general secretary in-charge, Deepak Babaria faced a collective call for a change in the party's leadership in the state.
After stepping down from the train at the Bhopal railway station on Monday morning, the Gujarat politician, who is also a close confidant of Rahul Gandhi, was surrounded by party workers shouting slogans in support of senior party leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia, Kamal Nath and Suresh Pachauri. Supporters of Scindia and Kamal Nath, have been demanding a change of guard in the state leadership of the party for a long time.
While the Congress leader trained his guns at the BJP national president Amit Shah on the issue of alleged irregularities by Shah's son Jay Shah, the state party leaders, including some MLAs, kept on demanding a change of guard in state Congress leadership.
On Tuesday, at the meeting of the Congress MLAs in the state party headquarters, some MLAs, including four-time legislator from Bhopal North seat Arif Aqeel (also considered party's minority face in MP) questioned the presence of non-MLAs at the meeting, after which the state party president Arun Yadav and general secretary Chandrika Prasad Dwivedi left the meeting.
If sources present at the meeting are to be believed, the bitterness of some MLAs with the state party office bearers forced former minister and leader of opposition in the state assembly Ajay Singh to intervene in the matter asking the concerned legislators to exercise restraint.
Just a short while later, a group of party workers who have been raising slogans since the last two days for appointing former union minister and nine-time MP from Chhindwara seat Kamal Nath as state president, stopped Babaria's passage on the PCC ground floor for appointing their leader as party state chief.
Concerned over the episode, the state Congress president Arun Yadav and leader of opposition in the state assembly Ajay Singh 'Rahul' told journalists in the evening, that the incident amounted to gross indiscipline, which cannot be tolerated. "Those involved in the incident are being identified and disciplinary action will be taken by the party against them," the two leaders said.
Another issue which kept coming up at series of meetings with Babaria was the elections of Pradesh Congress Committee delegates in the state, where several grassroots workers have alleged that leaders sitting in Bhopal, overlooking ground realities are changing lists and adding names of those close to them as delegates.
A young legislator from Jabalpur region told the journalists on Tuesday, "the climate is fertile for us, people want us to win MP, but it seems that party stalwarts in Bhopal themselves don't want us to win."
Also, Babaria held one-to-one talks with many MLAs, where one of the legislators and former chief minister Digvijaya Singh's son Jaivardhan Singh (MLA from Raghogarh) suggested that in select assembly constituencies the candidates should be finalized six months before next year's assembly polls, to bolster prospects of the party on those seats.
Assembly polls in the state where Congress has been out of power since November 2003 are slated for November 2018.