Lok Sabha elections 2024: A day after loyalist MLA joins BJP, Kamal Nath visits Chhindwara, seeks support

Chhindwara: Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath and his MP son Nakul Nath on Saturday arrived in Amarwara in Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara district a day after their loyalist MLA Kamlesh Pratap Shah crossed over to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Addressing an election rally, Kamal Nath said he would serve Chhindwara till his last breath and, with folded hands, asked the people to continue supporting him.

Hitting out at Shah, Nakul Nath said he had come to the area three times in the last six days but the former had accompanied him only once.

"The MLA you elected turned out to saleable and a traitor. I ask you to not forgive him. Vote en masse for me. I thank you for voting for me in the last Lok Sabha polls," Nakul Nath said attacking Shah.

Chhindwara will go to polls on April 19. It was the only seat among the 29 in Madhya Pradesh which the Congress won in the 2019 polls. The rest were swept by the BJP.

Shah, who was MLA from Amarwara three times in a row, on Friday resigned from the Assembly and joined the BJP in the presence of Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and others.

Chhindwara, where the BJP is pulling out all stops to ensure victory, is a bastion of Kamal Nath. He represented it in Parliament nine times.

Incidentally, in the 2023 Assembly polls, which the BJP swept, the Congress manage to win all seven assembly segments that make up Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat.

In the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Nakul Nath is pitted against the BJP's Vivek Sahu, who claimed more than 5,000 Congress functionaries from Chhindwara have joined the ruling party in the past few weeks.