Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath submitted his resignation to Governor Lalji Tandon at 1pm on March 20, bringing to an end the 15-month chapter of Congress rule in the state. The party that had been able to get back to power could not hold on long, after failing to keep its own house in order and being out-manoeuvred by the opposition BJP.
Nath, considered a master strategist in politics, was caught unawares on several counts and had no strong trusted lieutenants to fall back on and waged a lonely battle against a well-coordinated, strong team of the Bharatiya Janata Party, giving up finally on Friday.
Digvijaya Singh, the only other senior leader of Congress in the scenario, failed to do much except try a last ditch attempt to woo back the rebel MLAs, though the move came too late. Political watchers have been blaming the underhanded manoevours of Digvijaya Singh too as being the cause of the entire fiasco, especially when it came to handling Jyotiraditya Scindia.
Scindia, who recently switched camps from the Congress to the BJP to initiate the fall of the Congress government, tweeted that this was a win for the people of Madhya Pradesh. “I have always maintained that politics should be a medium for service to people, but the state government had meandered from this path. Truth has again won. Satyamev Jayate,” he tweeted.
Scindia is now the Rajya Sabha candidate of the BJP, which is not only poised to form the government in Madhya Pradesh, but also win two out of the three Rajya Sabha seats from the state, the voting for which will be on March 26.
Political commentator Manish Dixit pointed out that firstly Kamal Nath, despite being considered a shrewd political manager, apparently failed to gauge the intensity of Jyotiraditya Scindia’s growing anger and discomfort in the party and also probably the extent of loyalty that his supporters have for him. Digvijaya Singh has also openly admitted that he did not expect Scindia to join the BJP. Nath has also said that he did not know why Scindia did this. This means that they failed to keep track of the situation that was developing.
The more important thing was that Nath, practically caught alone after Scindia supporters’ rebellion, could not manage the scenario. He had probably counted on getting back some of the rebels and breaking away few from the BJP camp to save his government, but the BJP fortification of the rebels and its own MLAs was so strong that there was no scope left to get to them, Dixit says.
“However, in my view, Kamal Nath should have at least understood the situation and resigned on March 16 before the floor test denial and Supreme Court moves. This would have been more graceful,” Dixit said.
Senior political author Rasheed Kidwai said that after the adamant position taken by the rebels, the call was always tough for Nath. “It was like one against many. Nath was pitched against factors known and unknown, visible and invisible,” he said.
BJP chief whip and ex-minister Narottam Mishra, who played a key role in the entire episode, said ‘der aaye durust aaye’ (better later than never) to the decision of Nath quitting as CM. “They had come by telling lies and have also departed telling lies. But the people know everything,” Mishra said.
He said that the BJP had enough numbers to form a steady government and soon a decision for candidate of chief minister will be taken by the party leadership. “The state president will talk to the national president and the legislature party meet will also be held,” he said. Mishra also exuded confidence that the BJP will win maximum of the 25 bye-polls slated in the state due to resignations. Two seats were vacant earlier.
Switching sides
As the political tides turned, several interesting developments started happening.
In a surprise move, speaker N.P. Prajapati announced the acceptance of resignation of BJP Beohari MLA Sharad Kol on Friday morning. This took the tally of resignations up to 23, though Kol claimed that he had applied for withdrawal of his resignation that was taken from him under duress.
Narayan Tripathi who had remained absent from show of strength of BJP MLAs before the governor on March 16 and was seen visiting the CM House several times during the period of turmoil, told media on Friday that he had never gone to Congress. “I was, I am and I will be with BJP,” he said.
Independent MLA Pradeep Jaiswal, who was a minister in Kamal Nath cabinet resigned from his post and said that he will support the new government for the development of his constituency. “I was with Kamal Nath till the last moment, but now I will support the new government so that development of my constituency is not hindered,” he said.
