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Once the elections were notified, the leaders of different factions — and there are several — went back to seek tickets for their supporters in what loosely qualifies as the ‘quota system’ of the oldest national party.
From Commerce Minister Kamal Nath to IT Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia to MPCC president Suresh Pachauri to HRD Minister Arjun Singh and his son Ajay Singh, and former chief minister Digvijay Singh, all got tickets for their followers. Having wangled tickets for their followers after a lot of hard work in Delhi, they went back to their respective turfs to campaign for their nominees.
The party never spoke in one voice and the campaign was clearly fragmented along the lines of different factions. The Congress failed to challenge the ruling BJP as a united body. There was Nath whose aggressive campaign, concentrated mainly in Chhindwara and nearby districts, saw his supporters calling the election a battle between Kamal and Kamal (the lotus is the BJP’s symbol).
Meanwhile, Arjun Singh’s son, Ajay, who despite being campaign committee chairman, was stuck in Sidhi district taking care of his own Churhat constituency. Incidentally, he was the only candidate from the possible contenders for the CM’s throne. Since the party had not projected anyone as CM, it was left to the regional satraps to covertly let their supporters pitch for them when they campaigned from door to door.
The show of unity had shown gaping cracks when former Congress chief Subhash Yadav openly projected Nath, with Digvijay Singh seconding him. Yadav, who was unceremoniously replaced by Pachauri, had a score to settle and so had Nath and Digvijay Singh, who never really accepted Pachauri. Yadav was among the Congress leaders who lost on Monday.
The party’s NSUI chief Rashmi Pawar and Youth Congress chief Jitu Patwari, too, lost. The Congress’s women’s wing chief, Shobha Ojha also lost from Indore. A couple of days before counting, the party had expelled Pankaj Sanghvi, an Arjun Singh supporter, for working against Ojha.
Even in defeat, Congress leaders were not united. Pachauri offered to resign, saying he took responsibility for the loss, while Nath blamed it on a lack of coordination among workers and district-level leaders. Senior leaders accepted on television that factionalism has always been a bane of the oldest national party and they were not really surprised by what happened in MP.
