Indiscipline worries Madhya Pradesh Congress

By Chandrakant Naidu

Bhopal, Feb 26 (SocialNews.XYZ) Madhya Pradesh Congress is grappling with growing indiscipline ahead of elections to Rajya Sabha due on March 26 and byelections for Joura and Agar-Malwa Assembly constituencies likely in May this is a major cause of worry for the party. Deepak Babaria, General secretary in charge of the state had expressed concern over the issue among party colleagues recently.

A notification on Tuesday from the Central Election Commission said nominations close for Rajya Sabha poll on March 13. Of the 11 Rajya Sabha seats from the state three are falling vacant in April. Tenure of BJP's Satyanarayan Jatia and Prabhat Jha and Congress' Digvijaya Singh is coming to end in April. On current strength in the Assembly Congress is favoured to win two and the BJP one seat.

Digvijaya Singh and former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia are vying for the two seats while Prabhat Jha hopes the Bharatiya Janata Party would re-nominate him for a third term.

Madhya Pradesh has joined the clamour for party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to be a contender from the state. That would be at the expense of Digvijaya Singh or Scindia. The Priyanka ploy has added a new facet to the ongoing bickering.

Digvijaya and Scindia camps have been at loggerheads for many years now. It makes headlines when Digvijaya Singh and Scindia meet. And that is an indicator of chasm between the two. For almost a week the local media has been reporting a possible one to one interaction between two leaders. They did meet on Monday at Guna just to exchange pleasantries. The mutual distrust continues.

Scindia has been sulking over denial of any major responsibility in the party. He became the first scion of the Scindia royalty to lose an election from the family bastion in Gwalior and Chambal region last year. The BJP fielded his own former ardent supporter to hand him a comprehensive defeat at Guna Lok Sabha seat.

Scindia's followers have been rooting for him to be made the PCC chief. Chief Minister Kamal Nath who had offered to quit the post after the mauling of the party in Lok Sabha elections continues to hold the post. Kamal Nath and Scindia have not got along well and hostilities are spilling into public. Scindia has been vocal against the government's failure to fulfil promises in party manifesto. His supporters in the ministry have frequently complained of non-cooperation by bureaucrats while the Chief Minister looks the other way. This is eroding his base among the masses.

The state electoral college has 228 voters after two seats fell vacant due to the demise of two MLAs.

The Congress has 115 MLAs in the Assembly. The ministry includes an Independent and the party enjoys the support of three other Independent MLAs, 2 Bahujan Samaj Party and 1 from Samajwadi Party.

The Congress will get two Rajya Sabha seats with the support of 115 MLAs and 6 Independents.

With 107 MLAs the BJP can hope to win only one Rajya Sabha seat.

Kamal Nath presided over a meeting on Friday to discuss preparations for Agar-Malwa that fell vacant due to the demise of Manohar Untwal of the BJP. The other constituency Joura will witness byelection due to the death of Banwarilal Sharma of the Congress. The party could again field student leader Vipin Wankhede who had lost the Assembly election to Untwal by a narrow margin of 2,490 votes in November 2018. Wankhede has been nursing the constituency even after his defeat.

The Congress has won this seat only twice since the Independence. The party is yet to take a call on the Joura seat.

Winning the two seats is important for the Congress as it will earn a simple majority in the Assembly with 116 out of 230 votes. The BJP is buoyant under the new state President V.D. Sharma who said his party has a strong united cadre and can snatch both seats from a divided Congress.

Source: IANS