Opinion: Kamal Nath Shows Mirror To INDIA, Stalls Rally
NDTV
The INDIA Bloc coordination committee's September 13 decision to hold a rally in Bhopal on October 1 was scrapped three days later. The reason - Kamal Nath, who heads the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, called out the hypocrisy of a unity extravaganza, at some cost to the party's fragile finances, when the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Samajwadi Party were declaring their own candidates for elections in the state later this year.
He conveyed his clear message to the leadership and committed the Madhya Pradesh Congress unit's resources into launching seven "Jan Aakrosh (people's angst) Yatras" across the state beginning on Ganesh Chaturthi (September 19). The choice of the date reflects Kamal Nath's competitive religiosity - his counter to the ruling BJP's Hindutva. Nath, unlike central leaders of the Congress, had distanced himself from Tamil Nadu Minister and DMK youth icon Udaynidhi Stalin's remarks against Sanatan Dharm, by asserting that "Bharat is the nation of Sanatan Dharm".
In a recent interview, Nath had said that his fight was primarily aimed at countering the "sangathan" (organisation) of BJP, which axiomatically entails refurbishing the Congress's "sangathan" in Madhya Pradesh. His government was toppled by defections. A number of defectors who had joined the BJP with Jyotirdaditya Scindia in 2020 have, in recent months, returned to the Congress fold.
