Congress spots a trend as two ex-BJP ministers join party in poll-bound MP

With two former BJP ministers joining the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, the grand old party believes that it is because of the advantage it has in poll-bound Karnataka that leaders from other parties are joining them, reports ETV Bharat's Amit Agnihotri.

New Delhi:The Congress on Saturday claimed that two former BJP ministers joining the party in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh was an indicator of a similar trend witnessed recently in Karnataka.

“The Congress has an advantage in Karnataka as indicated by most opinion polls. That is why so many top BJP and JD-S leaders joined us ahead of the polls. We are witnessing the same trend in Madhya Pradesh where BJP leaders are coming to us,” AICC secretary in charge of Madhya Pradesh CP Mittal told ETV Bharat.

On Saturday, two former BJP ministers, Deepak Joshi, son of former chief minister Kailash Joshi and Radheylal Baghel joined the Congress in the presence of MP unit chief Kamal Nath. Party insiders said both Deepak Joshi and Radheylal Baghel, who belong to the Brahmin and OBC groups respectively, had been feeling marginalised in the state BJP and have switched sides to strengthen the grand old party in the state.

Deepak Joshi handed over a portrait of his late father to Kamal Nath and urged the Congress state unit chief to protect Kailash Joshi’s legacy of honest politics in the state. “More BJP leaders are expected to join us over the coming months. The Congress is going to win the coming assembly polls just like we did in 2018,” said Mittal.

The AICC secretary in charge of MP recalled that the Congress had won the 2018 assembly polls as the then factions represented by Kamal Nath, Digvijay Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia had worked unitedly. “Scindia joined the BJP in 2020 and led to the fall of the Kamal Nath government due to his political ambitions. But this time also there are no factions in the state unit. Kamal Nath is leading the party and Digvijay is fully backing him,” said Mittal.

“The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government came to power in 2020 due to political corruption. They are hardly bothered about development,” he said. The AICC functionary acknowledged that organizational weakness in the MP unit had been a concern since 2020 but claimed that gaps in the party set up had been addressed over the past year down to the block level.

“The Udaipur Declaration in May 2022 had decided that the party should set up a Mandal-level team across the country. MP is the only state which has completed around 70 percent of such party units to strengthen the ground-level network,” said Mittal. According to party insiders, Scindia had been promised the position of either chief minister or state unit chief by Rahul Gandhi before the 2018 polls but after the results, Kamal Nath got the chief minister’s chair.

Later, Scindia alleged he was being neglected by the Kamal Nath-Digvijay Singh duo and decided to switch loyalties. However, the party insiders further noted that both Nath and Singh had been trying hard to regroup the MP Congress over the past years. “The Congress has protested against the state government on major issues like jobs, price rise, farmers plight and targeting of Rahul Gandhi.

The party is strong and will sweep the coming assembly polls,” MP Congress working president and MLA Jitu Patwari told ETV Bharat. “The BJP is worried as they have not done anything over the past three years and do not know how to go to the voters,” he added.