Ahead of polls, Rahul Gandhi rejigs Madhya Pradesh Congress

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 26

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday named senior leader Kamal Nath as the new chief of party’s Madhya Pradesh unit also appointing Jyotiraditya Scindia as the state campaign committee president.

Madhya Pradesh goes to polls at the end of this year and the organisational change was long due.

Gandhi has also named four working presidents for the state to look after four different zones and cover the state geographically. Gandhi has been appointing working presidents in larger states to ensure booth management, a weak spot for the Congress.

Kamal Nath’s appointment in MP means he will step down as AICC general secretary in charge of Haryana where a reshuffle would then become necessary.

In Madhya Pradesh, Nath, the seniormost Congress MP in Lok Sabha, is seen as the best bet to reinvigorate party cadres ahead of the crucial assembly election. The BJP has held power in MP for three terms consecutively and is again making a bid.

The Congress has long suffered infighting in the state with three poles of power--Nath, Scindia and former CM Digvijay Singh.

It’s only now that the Congress has managed to reconcile factional differences with Gandhi conveying to leaders that their wars would not help the Congress reclaim MP.

Nath had been interested in a Madhya Pradesh role for years and never quite got a handle in Haryana where the party organisation suffered because of the differences between state chief Ashok Tanwar and former CM Bhupinder Hooda.

All eyes are on Haryana where there are many claimants to the state chief’s post, including Hooda, Randeep Surjewala, Kumari Selja and Kuldeep Bishnoi.