BHOPAL : Rewind to March 2020, when 22 Congress MLAs (mostly loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia) walked out of the Congress pulling down the 15-month-old Kamal Nath-led Congress regime in Madhya Pradesh.
Nearly four years later, the grand old party is apprehensive of another exodus of its sitting and former MLAs in Madhya Pradesh, if its former state party chief Kamal Nath or his first-time MP son Nakul Nath or both of them join the BJP.
The Congress’ central leadership, including Sonia Gandhi and her MP son Rahul Gandhi, are reportedly making all possible efforts to convince Nath to respect his decades-old bonding with the party and not join the BJP. However, back in Bhopal, the state Congress leadership too is engaged in damage control.
The state Congress leadership continues to maintain that neither Kamal Nath nor any other former or existing MLAs will join the BJP.
However, it is already talking to its 66 sitting MLAs individually to ensure no damage or least damage to its ranks ahead of the February 22 arrival of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in MP.
Sources in the Nath camp said if Nath actually joins or even his son Nakul Nath and daughter-in-law Priya Nath make a switch to the BJP, they will not be alone. It will be accompanied by 15-20 sitting MLAs, 5-8 former MLAs (many of whom lost the 2023 assembly polls) and two mayors.
Most of the sitting MLAs who might follow Nath and his family into the BJP, include the six MLAs of Chhindwara and Pandhurna districts, besides MLAs from adjoining Balaghat, Seoni, Mandla and Dindori districts.
These districts form a part of Nath’s home region – Mahakoshal – which sends 17 out of the 66 present Congress MLAs.
The legislators from the Mahakoshal region include all six MLAs from Chhindwara and Pandhurna districts (Nath being the seventh MLA) which form Nath’s son Nakul Nath’s Lok Sabha constituency Chhindwara.
The list also includes some senior and first-time MLAs from adjoining districts, including ex-minister and third-time sitting MLA from Jabalpur-East seat Lakhan Ghanghoriya, second-time MLA from Paraswada seat Madhu Bhagat, Baihar MLA Sanjay Uike and Waraseoni MLA Vicky Patel.
Not just MLAs from the tribal-dominated Mahakoshal region, but some MLAs loyal and close to Nath from other regions also could follow their leader into the BJP.
Also, many of Congress’s 2023 assembly poll big losers, including ex-ministers Sajjan Singh Verma, Tarun Bhanot, Vijaylaxmi Sadho, Ravi Joshi and Sukhdev Panse (Verma and Panse are reportedly camping in Delhi) and fourth-time former MLA from Chhindwara seat Deepak Saxena (who had vacated his seat for Nath in 2018) are also likely to walk behind Nath.
However, it’s not clear whether senior MLA from Rajpur-ST seat and ex-home minister Bala Bachchan would also follow Nath into the BJP.