MP Congress feud: Top leaders meet Sonia Gandhi to ‘complain about Kamal Nath’
BHOPAL: Internal feud continues to dent the Congress party as senior leaders from the Madhya Pradesh cadre have rushed to Delhi to meet national president Sonia Gandhi to air their grievances against state party chief Kamal Nath. On Wednesday, former MP Congress president Arun Yadav met Gandhi and held discussions for about 40 minutes, while another former state president Ajay Singh has also sought time from her. “Senior leaders, including Arun Yadav, Ajay Singh, Ramniwas Rawat, Suresh Pachori and others, are feeling ignored in the party. MPCC president Kamal Nath is continuously ignoring senior leaders. They wanted to convey to the top leadership that all is not well in MP Congress. This will make winning the 2023 assembly election even tougher for the party,” a senior Congress leader familiar with the developments said. The feud came to light recently when top leaders in the party were absent from the state unit’s ‘Ghar Chalo, Ghar Ghar Chalo’ campaign. Nath and other senior leaders also a post-Holi programme organised Yadav on March 20. However, dissident camp leaders from Indore and Bhopal attended the programme. MP youth Congress spokesperson Vivek Tripathi said, “This programme was organised for a selected few and Kamal Nath ji didn’t attend because he was out of town.” According to party leaders, Yadav is upset for not getting a ticket in the Khandwa Lok Sabha seat polls due to internal party politics. During the polls, Congress MLA Sachin Birla from Khargone, who is considered close to Yadav, left the party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after accusing Nath of behaving in an autocratic manner. After Congress lost the seat, Nath dismissed four drict leaders in Khandwa and Khargone citing anti-party activities. These four were also close to Yadav. A party leader close to him said, “All these points were discussed in the meeting with Sonia Gandhi.” When contacted, Yadav refused to comment on the meeting. BJP leaders took a swipe at the Congress, with MP home miner Narottam Mishra saying, “Arun Yadav is being ignored Kamal Nath at every level. Yadav met Sonia Gandhi to share his grievances and now he will challenge Kamal Nath, who is holding all the important posts in MP.” MP Congress Committee media in-charge Narendra Saluja played it down, and said, “There is no internal feud in the party. Arun Yadav ji met Sonia Gandhi to hold a general discussion. But BJP leaders are spreading lies to hide the problems in BJP where home miner himself is doing meeting with top leadership for the chief miner’s post.”
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