In Kamal Nath bastion of Chhindwara, BJP on prowl, Congress tries to herd its leaders

A team of senior Congress leaders, including former general secretaries, youth presidents and councillors, have taken a break from politics and are enjoying a game of cricket at the Indira Gandhi Cricket Stadium in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhindwara district, where posters of Kamal Nath and his son Nakul Nath dominate the landscape.

Ashish Tripathi, a key election strategist for the Congress and a Kamal Nath loyalist, is watching the game from the stands but, he admits, his mind is on the coming Lok Sabha elections. “Everyone asks me when Kamal Nath is joining the BJP. I repeat what Kamal Nath says when asked this – ‘Aapki kya raye hai (What is your opinion)?’,” says Tripathi.

Adding that it is wrong to proclaim the Congress’s demise, he says: “The BJP has its eyes set on Chhindwara… They can try to break us, but the Chhindwara Congress shines when our backs are against the wall.”

Right now, that wall seems pretty shaky. In recent days, the BJP claims to have weaned away 4,500 Congress workers from across the state to its side, including district presidents, mayors, sarpanchs – 1,500 of them in Chhindwara alone, which significantly was the sole parliamentary constituency that the BJP did not win in 2019.

Against this backdrop, rumours spread like wildfire about a fortnight ago that Kamal Nath, the state Congress chief, and Nakul, the Chhindwara MP, were joining the queue out the party door. Media parked itself for several days outside the Delhi house of the 77-year-old Congress leader – a nine-time MP, former CM and a party veteran since Sanjay Gandhi days – in anticipation.

Kamal Nath was said to be smarting from the Congress central leadership’s rap to him over the Madhya Pradesh Assembly poll loss, as well as the denial of a