BHOPAL: Amid reports of a growing rift between Chief Minister Kamal Nath and ex-union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Nath on Tuesday said that he was not at all angry with the former Guna MP.
Scindia had publicly threatened to hit streets over non-fulfilment of party’s assembly poll promises.
“Mai kabhi kisi se naaraaz nahi hota, jab mai Shivraj Singh se naaraaz nahi hota, toh phir Scindia se kyun naaraaz hunga (I don’t get angry with anyone, when I’m not angry with ex-CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, why will I be annoyed with Jyotiraditya Scindia),” Kamal Nath told journalists in Bhopal.
Three days back in Delhi, when queried by scribes about Scindia having publicly declared to hit the streets, if the promises made in party’s 2018 poll manifesto (including regularizing services of guest faculties in colleges) were not fulfilled, Nath had said, “Let him (Scindia) hit the streets, if he wants to.”
When asked by journalists in Bhopal about his comment on Scindia on Saturday, Nath responded, “What’s so big about it, since he said he will hit streets and the journalists asked me about it, so I said let him to what he wants.”
Last week, while addressing a public rally in Tikamgarh district, Scindia (who along with Nath was in the race for becoming MP CM in December 2018) had told the atithi shikshaks (guest faculties) present in the crowd that their demand for regularizing services was part of Congress’s 2018 assembly poll manifesto. He had added that if the assurances made in the manifesto weren’t met, then he would join the guest faculties in their struggle on the streets. “I’ll be your sword and shield both on streets,” Scindia had said.
Scindia who was among those senior Congress leaders who lost the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from their pocket-boroughs is reportedly in the race for succeeding Kamal Nath as the MP Congress Committee chief and is also reportedly eyeing place in the Rajya Sabha through the April polls to the upper house of the Parliament.
Importantly, three Rajya Sabha seats from Madhya Pradesh will fall vacant in April as the term of three present RS members, including ex-CM Digvijaya Singh (Congress) and Satya Narayan Jatiya and Prabhat Jha (BJP) expire within a couple of months. While Congress is set to win two of these seats, the BJP is set to bag one seat.
Earlier, it was speculated that Congress will send both Digvijaya Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia to RS from MP, but now demand has been made by leaders (including three MP cabinet ministers) from Digvijaya Singh and Kamal Nath led groups to send Congress national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh.