`If Scindia is a BIG gun, then why BJP...` Kamal Nath attacks `politically redundant` Jyotiraditya

Expressing confidence that Congress will return to power in Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath said that people of the state are fade up with issues of unemployment and migration while drought-related problems still plague the Bundelkhand region.

Madhya Pradesh Congress chief and former Chief Minister Kamal Nath launched a scathing attack on Union Minister and his former colleague Jyotiraditya Scindia terming him politically redundant in the state. Expressing confidence that Congress will return to power in Madhya Pradesh, Nath said that people of the state are fade up with issues of unemployment and migration while drought-related problems still plague the Bundelkhand region.

"Gone are the days when we used to say that this is Congress' village and that is BJP's village. Now voters have their own thinking...We don't need any Scindia (to win polls), if he was such a big gun (bada topp) then why (BJP) lost Gwalior and Morena mayoral polls," said Nath.

The Congress in July 2022 won the mayoral elections in Gwalior, once the capital of the erstwhile Scindia kingdom, after 57 years, as well as in Morena where the municipal corporation was formed about eight years ago.

Nath also pitched for cast census and old pension scheme in the state. "I don't know what these people (govt) are scared of. What these people are trying to hide? It's important to conduct a caste-based census in the state...When our government will be formed in Madhya Pradesh, we will also implement old pension scheme," said Nath.

Nath and Scindia had together campaigned in the 2018 state elections in which the Congress defeated the BJP by a slender margin after 15 years. But Nath stepped down as the chief minister in March 2020 after 22 Congress MLAs loyal to Scindia resigned from the Assembly and moved to the BJP, paving the way for the return of Shivraj Singh Chouhan to the top post.

The former Union minister expressed confidence that the Congress would make a comeback in this year's assembly elections and launch 'welfare schemes for farmers, young people and the poor' in the state. 

If the Congress comes to power, it would pay special attention to the Bundelkhand region to pull it from backwardness, he added.

Hitting out at Nath, state minister Mahendra Singh Sisodia said Scindia was a missile that brought the Congress to power in the 2018 Assembly polls and also ensured it fell in March 2020.

"Scindia is not a topp (canon), but a missile. This missile will also lead the BJP to victory in the 2023 Assembly polls in MP," Sisodia, a staunch loyalist of the Union civil aviation minister, said. (With agency inputs)