BHOPAL: Hemant Katare resigned from the post of Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha on Friday. Congress leaders have clarified that Katare's resignation was from the post, not the party.
As per informed sources, the 40-year-old legislator left the House (Vidhan Sabha) suddenly at around 4 pm and tendered his resignation to the party’s national and state leadership, including national president Mallikarjun Kharge, state chief Jitu Patwari and the state Leader of Opposition (LoP) Umang Singhar.
While Katare could not be contacted in the matters, the state general secretary Dr Sanjay Kamle and state media department head Mukesh Nayak, said Katare had sent the resignation from his post citing paucity of time for his assembly constituency Ater (Bhind) as well as taking up his family responsibilities. A senior state Congress leader added that Katare is not responding to repeated phone calls, which has worried the party’s top leaders in Bhopal.
As per local media reports, Katare resigned from the post on the day of his wedding anniversary.
The timing of his resignation assumed particular significance as it happened amid reports about the Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi arriving in Bhopal on February 24 to protest against the India-US trade deal.
The sudden development has led to much speculation.
Though Congress leaders claim that Katare's resignation was motivated by personal reasons, there are whispers of alleged differences between him and LoP Umang Singhar.
Singhar has denied rumours of rift between him and Katare. “He participated in the debate (on the Bhagirathpura-Indore deaths issue) in the Vidhan Sabha earlier today and had lunch with all of us. Like other MLAs of the party, I too am stunned by the development. It’s a matter of our family and we’ll sit and talk to resolve it soon. If there is any issue, it needs to be resolved within the family only.”
When questioned about possibility of Katare making a switch to the BJP, the LoP said, “Such a question doesn’t arise, his (Katare’s) father Late Satyadev Katare has been a senior leader and also the Congress legislature party leader in the past. The family is an old Congress family.”
Hemant Katare is the son of former Leader of Opposition and MP minister Late Satyadev Katare.
His father won the Ater seat of Bhind district four times between 1985 and 2013. After father’s death in 2016, Hemant won the 2017 by-election, defeating father’s arch BJP rival Arvind Singh Bhadoria. In 2018 assembly polls Hemant Katare lost to Bhadoria, but wrested the seat in 2023 from Bhadoria.
The Katare family was traditionally very close to the Scindia family (erstwhile Gwalior royal family). But despite having lost the 2018 polls, Hemant Katare didn’t follow Jyotiraditya Scindia and loyalists into the BJP in March 2020. He instead stayed back with the Congress and was rewarded with the deputy LoP’s post after Congress’s unexpected 2023 assembly poll debacle.
He has been regularly attacking the ruling BJP leaders on the issue of corruption, particularly Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s loyalist former minister and senior saffron party MLA Bhupendra Singh.
On Friday when the Congress MLAs tried to bring an adjournment motion on the Indore contaminated water deaths issue, Katare had confronted senior BJP leaders, including former Speaker Sitasaran Sharma and cabinet minister Rakesh Singh, when Sharma questioned the opposition party MLAs demand for discussion on an issue on which a one-man judicial inquiry commission had already begun probe. Katare, however, didn’t seem to get support from fellow party MLAs, including the LoP.