Earlier on Saturday, Kamal Nath had arrived in Delhi and during his brief interaction with reporters here, he asked them not to get excited. Asked if he was joining the BJP, Nath said, “If there would be any such thing, I would inform you first.”
From Bhopal to Delhi, suspense had prevailed over what would be Nath’s next move, amid various theories doing the rounds of political circles.
While the Congress leadership, including ex-AICC presidents Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, and the party’s general secretary reportedly rang and spoke with Nath in attempts to prevent him from making a possible big political switch, the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister had remained non-committal about his next move.
An astute politician, Kamal Nath has worked with three generations of the Gandhi family. In 1979, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi described him as her third son.
Nath is said to be disgruntled over not getting a Rajya Sabha berth.
There have been reports about a section of the Congress’s central leadership, including Rahul Gandhi, not being happy with Nath’s style of functioning, which was counted among the reasons for the party’s debacle in the assembly polls.
Nath was replaced as the Congress’s Madhya Pradesh unit chief following its rout in the Assembly polls, in which the BJP retained power, winning 163 seats in the 230-member House. The Congress managed to win just 66 seats.
Though all is not going well between Rahul and Kamal Nath, the latter was regularly meeting Sonia Gandhi. Kamal Nath’s frequent visits to meet Sonia were also being viewed as the leader racing for the Rajya Sabha seat from Madhya Pradesh.
According to sources close to Nath, the BJP’s national top brass has been in touch with the former MP CM for the last few weeks. Nath is particularly concerned about his son Nakul Nath’s political future in Chhindwara, knowing well that it would be difficult for the first-time MP to win easily if the BJP fields a strong candidate there in the Lok Sabha polls.
Chhindwara was the only Lok Sabha seat among the 29 in Madhya Pradesh that the Congress was able to win in the 2019 polls.
