Sources said Nakul Nath is likely to get the BJP ticket to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Chhindwara.
New Delhi:
With the speculation over his possible switch to the BJP reaching fever pitch after he arrived in New Delhi earlier today, senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath will meet the ruling party’s leadership in the capital, sources have told NDTV. The meeting is expected to take place tonight.
Rumours of Mr Nath and his son, Nakul Nath, leaving the Congress have been doing the rounds for the past few days. They intensified earlier today when Nakul Nath, the lone Congress MP from Madhya Pradesh, dropped the party’s name from his bio on social media and Kamal Nath arrived in Delhi.
Earlier this month, Nakul Nath had declared himself the candidate from the Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat, which he had won in 2019, without waiting for the Congress to do so.
“This time, too, I will be your candidate for Lok Sabha elections. Rumours are going around whether Kamal Nath or Nakul Nath would contest the election, I would like to make it clear that Kamal Nath won’t contest the election, I will,” the Congress MP had said while addressing a gathering in his constituency.
Sources have told The Hindkesharithat it is yet to be decided whether Kamal Nath will join the BJP or stop at quitting the Congress. Nakul Nath, however, is likely to get the BJP ticket to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Chhindwara and the modalities of him joining the party are being worked out.
‘You People Are Getting Excited’
After he arrived in Delhi, reporters asked Kamal Nath if was planning to join the BJP and got a non-committal response. When they pointed out that he was not denying the possibility, the former chief minister said, “It is not about denying, you are saying this, you people are getting excited. I am not getting excited, this side or that side, but if there was any such thing, I would inform you first.”
Denying reports of the possible switch, Jitu Patwari, who replaced Kamal Nath as the Madhya Pradesh Congress President after the party’s comprehensive defeat in the state elections last year, said in Hindi, “When Jyotiraditya Scindia had quit the party (in 2020) and our government had fallen, every Congress worker had taken Kamal Nath’s ideology and leadership to heart and worked with him. The reports doing the rounds are baseless.”
“Can you think even in a dream that Indira Gandhi’s ‘third son’ will quit the Congress? Can he think of leaving the workers who fought the Assembly elections under his leadership and worked tirelessly to try and make him the chief minister,” he asked.
Mr Patwari also denied rumours that Kamal Nath was upset because he had not been nominated for the Rajya Sabha polls and said that it was the former chief minister who had proposed Ashok Singh’s name.