Three days after the Congress’s debacle in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly election, senior leaders have come out in the public questioning the leadership over issues such as infighting in the State unit.
Senior State leader Lakshman Singh, brother of former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, took to X on Wednesday saying the EVMs are being blamed to “hide” the sabotage and infighting in the party.
Stating that the demand for ballots were being made for 20 years, Mr. Singh asked, “... till date we have not taken the help of law, why so? Perhaps to hide the sabotage, EVMs are being blamed. The machine cannot talk back”.
His comments came barely hours after Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party leader Rahul Gandhi at Mr. Kharge’s official residence in Delhi.
Though there has been no official word yet on the meeting, political observers say there will be pressure on Mr. Nath to make way for a new leadership in the State after the party was reduced to 66 seats in the 230-member Assembly, from 114 seats in 2018.
A close aide of Mr. Nath also refuted claims that he will resign and asserted that the party will soon begin preparations for the Lok Sabha election in 2024.
Alleges vote tampering
Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Nath held a review meeting with party’s new MLAs and defeated candidates in Bhopal. After the meeting, the State Congress, in a statement, said several candidates had claimed that on average, at least 100 EVMs or 20,000 votes seem to have been tampered with (in their respective constituencies).
At the meeting, Mr. Nath advised them not to get disheartened by the results of the Assembly election but focus on the Lok Sabha poll.
Despite winning 114 seats in the 2018 Assembly election, the party only won one seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll – Chhindwara by Mr. Nath’s son Nakul Nath.
Going into the next year’s election, the Congress will have to deal with various challenges with the most immediate being boosting the morale of the workers who have just faced a crushing defeat and also the absence of a second line of leadership in the State.
