With Congress winning elections to five municipal corporations on Wednesday, the grand old party has broken the jinx since 2015 when it had not won a single election to municipal bodies in Madhya Pradesh. Most notably, the party has won the mayoral seat in Gwalior, the home constituency of BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, after 57 years. The Congress has also won Chhindwara and Muraina municipalities for the first time. The party is set to run the municipalities in Jabalpur after 23 years and in Rewa after 24 years.
Sources in the Congress gave the credit to PCC Chief Kamalnath for steering the party from cold and putting it back in reckoning in state politics. “The victory under Kamalnath’s leadership is unprecedented,” said former Union minister Suresh Pachauri. Speaking to The Daily Guardian Review, senior journalist and commentator Piyush Babele said, “Kamalnath has led the party from the front in the municipal elections. He kept the momentum from selecting candidates to running the election campaign. He also managed to keep all Congressmen together and there was no sabotage from within the party. It is the PCC chief’s strategic skills which have secured the Congress victory in the polls.”
The reversal of party fortunes in electoral politics in the state comes after the party lost to the BJP in power struggle in March 2020, barely 15 months after the Congress formed government in 2018 with Kamalnath as chief minister, when Scindia defected to the saffron party along with 22 MLAs. It may be recalled that after enjoying power for a decade under the leadership of former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, Congress lost elections to the BJP in 2003 and was unable to make a comeback for the next 15 years. It was Kamalnath who helped the party to win the state back in 2018 and form the government.
When Kamalnath was forced to resign after the BJP engineered defection in the Congress to form its own government in 2018, speculation was rife in political circles that he would leave state politics and move to Delhi. However, Kamalnath stayed put and began to rebuild the party in the state. But the party did not fare well in assembly by-elections and won only 9 out of 28 seats. The party then won the Damoh by-election.
With party’s stunning performance in the two-phase local body elections in the state, the Congress is set to fight the next assembly elections under Kamalnath’s leadership only.