KAMAL NATH'S COLD START DOCTRINE

FOR NATH, THE CRITICAL UNIT OF THE PARTY IS THE MANDALAM, SOMETHING HE LEARNT FROM HIS VICTORIES IN CHHINDWARA

- Rahul Noronha

The Congress headquarters in Bhopal is a hive of activity—unusual given that the assembly election is only in 2023, and the party unit is used to ‘coming alive’ only when polls are near. Madhya Pradesh PCC chief and former chief minister Kamal Nath is making an early start, though. Nath, who had finally wrested the state from the BJP in 2018 only to lose it in 2020 when Jyotiraditya Scindia and his cohorts switched sides, knows that strengthening the organisation is crucial to take on the saffron regime, even one enervated by the long stint in power (2003-18 and then from 2020 on).

MP is crucial for the Congress as it is among the few states where the party’s been able to stage a comeback, even take the fight to its principal adversary, the BJP. Moreover, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the other two Congress-led states going to polls in 2023, could be facing anti-incumbency. A wave in its favour in MP could act as ballast in the other two states.

Part of the reason for the early intervention is Nath’s organised style of functioning, and his experience of his home bastion, Chhindwara, which has been a Congress fortress since 1980. So surveys are under way and reports and bios on possible candidates and party functionaries are being prepared. The 75-year-old Nath seems like a man on a mission, more so because he is now the go-to man for the Congress in MP, with few rivals in sight. Scindia’s defection has, in that sense, liberated him. Besides being PCC chief, Nath is also leader of the opposition. Those within the Congress who were close to Scindia but did not go to the BJP with him, have now joined Nath’s ranks.