“Poor Uddhav too…”: Shivraj Chouhan’s dig at Kamal Nath after MVA collapse

Mad­hya Pradesh Chief Min­is­ter Shiv­raj Singh Chouhan on Thurs­day lashed out at Con­gress leader Kamal Nath, who was sent to Maha­rash­tra as a par­ty observ­er after polit­i­cal upheavals that saw the col­lapse of Maha Vikas Aghadi’s gov­ern­ment. Chouhan said it was strange for Con­gress to send a per­son to bail out the MVA gov­ern­ment that his gov­ern­ment in Mad­hya Pradesh could­n’t bail out.

“It is strange of Con­gress to send one per­son (Kamal Nath) to res­cue the gov­ern­ment of Maha­rash­tra who could not save his gov­ern­ment… Poor Uddhav had to go too… Con­gress only has one ‘Nath’, the rest of the Con­gress is ‘anath’ ’ (orphan),” Chouhan told reporters in Jabalpur, where he was cam­paign­ing for munic­i­pal body elections.

Kamal Nath was forced to resign as Mad­hya Pradesh CM in 2020 after 22 MLAs of Con­gress, most loy­al to Jyoti­ra­ditya Scindia, resigned from the assem­bly. Con­gress was reduced to a minor­i­ty, paving the way for Chouhan to return after 15 months as prime min­is­ter. Con­gres­sion­al defec­tors were lat­er absorbed into the BJP and most of them won the gen­er­al election.

Eknath Shinde and Deven­dra Fad­navis face a dif­fi­cult bal­anc­ing act when swap­ping roles

Chouhan’s remark came on the night rebel Shiv Sena MLA Eknath Shinde was sworn in as Maha­rash­tra’s chief min­is­ter, while BJP leader Deven­dra Fad­navis swore in as his deputy. With that, Con­gress has now been oust­ed from pow­er in yet anoth­er state, rul­ing only Rajasthan and Chhat­tis­garh alone and Jhark­hand in alliance with the JMM and the RJD.

It comes as a shock to the grand ole par­ty, which suf­fered a series of set­backs in the gen­er­al elec­tion ear­li­er this year. While the par­ty lost its gov­ern­ment in Pun­jab, in Uttarak­hand, Goa and Manipur it failed to cap­i­tal­ize on the per­ceived anti-sta­tus fac­tor against the BJP.

Sev­er­al promi­nent lead­ers includ­ing for­mer Union min­is­ters Ash­wani Kumar and RPN Singh, for­mer Goan Prime Min­is­ter Luiz­in­ho Faleiro, for­mer Pun­jab Con­gress chief Sunil Jakhar and Gujarat Labor Pres­i­dent Hardik Patel have sided with the par­ty in recent months leaving.