What next for Congress as Nath-Singh duo falters in front of Modi & 'mama' Shivraj?

Three years ago, senior party veterans Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh joined hands to help a younger Jyotiraditya Scindia push himself out of Congress that consolidated their positions but the septuagenarian leaders could not weave the same magic with voters to bring their party back to power again, leaving questions whether they will be walking into their political sunset soon.

Kamal Nath is 77 and while Singh is 76 and the party may be forced to look for a new generation in leadership at a time it is no secret that behind the duo’s public bonhomie lies intense intrigue to control the party in the state where both were Chief Ministers. Kamal Nath returned to the state in 2018 to become Chief Minister while Digvijaya was CM for 10 years.

Leaders like Jitu Patwari, Arun Singh, Singh’s son Jaivardhan and Meenakshi Natarajan, who is considered close to Rahul Gandhi, are among the names speculated to take the mantle from the seniors in the state where the party has been in power for just 15 months in the past 20 years. Singh was in power for ten years till 2003.

While none would speculate on the future of a politician, indications are that the leadership’s patience may be running out on both as they kept the party affairs and elections to themselves. The Congress’ central leadership left it to both the leaders to manage the affairs in the hope that they could capitalise on the anti-incumbency against the BJP government.

Not only did CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan manage to weave a narrative of governance that fetched votes catapulting the party to power again, the Congress leaders could not get its narrative translated into votes either.

The results also showed that the ‘soft Hindutva’ campaign did not do any favour for the Congress while the BJP managed to change the anti-incumbency narrative. The Congress was the first to hit the road announcing ‘freebies’ but the BJP torpedoed it with its own ‘revdis’ and Chouhan hard-selling ‘Ladli Behna Yojana’.

Both Kamal Nath and Singh were also accused of high-handedness in candidate selection. Singh is even accused of playing behind the scene to deny seats to some probable winners with Kamal Nath being caught on camera saying, “tear Digvijaya Singh’s clothes” for denying seats. On the other hand, Kamal Nath faces the charge of running a campaign without any consultation.

“It was one-upmanship. Arrogance of one leader led to this. We could have won the state,” a senior Madhya Pradesh leader told DH.

With Scindia in BJP fold and the saffron party winning comfortably, it will also be difficult for Kamal Nath and Singh to ensure victory for the party in the Lok Sabha elections. Congress has just one seat, which is held by Kamal Nath’s son Nakul, out of 28 Lok Sabha seats.