Bhopal: Demand is growing within the Madhya Pradesh unit of the Congress to announce a chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming assembly elections in the state.
Senior MLA Arif Aqeel on Friday kicked up the row saying the party should declare the CM face. He, however, declined to comment on the advantages and disadvantages of the decision saying it’s for everyone to evaluate.
Congress state in-charge Deepak Babaria made things murkier even more saying the party has been pondering over this internally and declined to share details with the media.
“This time no one would be made to visit Delhi for tickets and they not even need to come to Bhopal, the tickets would be distributed regionally. Everything would be finalized in MP itself,” he said, hinting at a policy shift in otherwise centrally-controlled party.
Babaria till now had refused to say anything about having a CM face.
Apart from them, there are other party leaders who want a CM candidate be declared at the earliest.
MLA Imarati Devi on Friday spoke in Jyotiraditya Scindia’s favour and demanded Scindia be declared the CM face. Congress MLA from Jabalpur Tarun Bhanot also backed the demand for declaring CM face.
Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh and state president Arun Yadav have already have made it clear that there is no need to declare CM face in Madhya Pradesh.
“Congress has been going to assembly polls without naming anyone as CM candidate since 1956 when the state was formed. Declaring CM face in advance is not our tradition. We will fight under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi who would choose the leader after elections,” Arun Yadav told the media on Friday.
Party insiders claim that several leaders are of the view that Congress has worked hard this time and, in order to cash in on the atmosphere in party’s favour, the party should name the CM candidate to sharpen the poll campaign. Majority of leaders are okay with the candidature of either veteran Kamal Nath or youth icon Scindia, a Congress leader said on anonymity.
Both the regional satraps are said to be lobbying hard at New Delhi for a nod in their favour for being the party’s choice of CM candidate ahead of assembly polls due later this year.
However, the party high-command aiming to avoid factionalism-driven implosion is deliberately avoiding announcement of CM face, party sources said.
Meanwhile, the party on Friday decided to launch massive protest against ‘misrule’ of BJP from next month and adopted five point resolution on issues.
The state government is under fire from government staffers, corruption, bad roads, high prices of petrol-diesel, farmers’ crisis and others issues and many Congress leaders believe that this would be the best chance in last two decades to defeat the ruling BJP, which came to power in 2003 after 10 years of Congress rule under Digvijay Singh.
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