Countdown to Madhya Pradesh polls: Declare Jyotiraditya Scindia CM face immediately, says Congress MP

NEW DELHI: Amid a hectic campaign for two assembly bypolls in Madhya Pradesh, senior Congress MP Satyavrat Chaturvedi has said Jyotiraditya Scindia should be immediately declared the party’s chief ministerial candidate for the assembly election due in December.

“The more we delay this announcement, the more the prospects will be not so good. If Congress wants to make a comeback in MP, the strong sentiment among the rural and urban electorate is for Scindia’s candidature as CM face at the earliest,” Chaturvedi, a Rajya Sabha member from the state, told ET.

Party members said this demand would reach a crescendo if the Congress retains both the Kolaras and Mungaoli assembly seats, which are in Scindia’s Lok Sabha constituency. Significantly, both the Congress state president, Arun Yadav, and party incharge for the state, Dipak Babaria, had reportedly said earlier this month that the party wouldn’t declare any CM candidate before the polls.


When contacted, however, Babaria told ET that the “most appropriate decision” would be taken on the issue. “We are neither ruling out nor we are saying we will not do it (declare a CM face). But we will not discuss our strategy in the media.

Whatever strategy is most suitable for us, we will pursue that,” he said. Chaturvedi said there would always be “two opinions” about any issue but no one can deny that the perception in Madhya Pradesh is strongly in favour of Scindia. “There has to be enough time for Scindia to go around in the state, in the districts, meet the Congressmen and local leaders, discuss the strategy, and prepare and rejuvenate Congress workers,” he said.

Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath too had earlier backed projection of Scindia as CM candidate while pressing for a collective campaign effort. The party is said to be hesitant given the CM ambitions of state party president Arun Yadav, who belongs to the Other Backward Classes. The party had fared poorly in the recent civic polls in Yadav’s Khandwa area.