Unrest Erupts In Cong After LS Rout

Bhopal: Two days after the embarrassing rout of Congress in the Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, where it lost all seats to BJP for the first time ever, former Leader of Opposition and Churhat MLA Ajay Singh has signalled an uprising.
In a statement issued by his office on Thursday evening, Ajay Singh — son of former CM Arjun Singh — has urged the party high command to ‘review’ the tenure of state Congress president Jitu Patwari, who was appointed on Dec 16, soon after the party was thrashed in last year’s assembly election.

“Congress’ defeat in MP should be reviewed on a wide scale. Workers are frustrated and disappointed, which is not good for the future of the party,” he said. He urged AICC to decide quickly on how to revive Congress in MP.
He also questioned the role of Kamal Nath and Digvijay Singh and asked why these two big leaders “did not come out of their areas to campaign”.
Speaking to reporters, Singh took no names but trained his guns on former chief minister Kamal Nath. “When a senior leader threatens to quit the party and join BJP, it has a major effect on Congress workers’ morale,” he said.
In Feb this year, there was dramatic speculation that Kamal Nath and his son Nakul may join BJP. As the rumours swirled, the Naths flew to Delhi on Feb 17, and the drama continued for the next three days — with statements from his loyalists and the arrival of half-a-dozen Congress MLAs in Delhi. Nath didn’t categorically deny the rumours, remarking that the “media created it and media should deny”.
The fiasco was damaging to party workers’ morale, said Singh.
“There are a number of reasons for Congress’s poor performance in Madhya Pradesh. The first reason is that our govt (formed in 2018) could not survive,” Singh said, referring to the March 2020 rebellion by Jyotiraditya Scindia and 22 loyalist MLAs who quit Congress and joined BJP, toppling the 15-month-old Kamal Nath govt.
“Second, a number of influential leaders of the party quit and joined BJP. No one stopped them from leaving. Third, one leader kept changing his statement from ‘I’m leaving’ to ‘I’m not leaving’. It had a major effect on Congress workers in the state. If such a big leader was willing to join BJP, what would a general party worker think?” Ajay Singh asked.
PCC chief Jitu Patwari should take full responsibility for the debacle, Singh said. Patwari has.
“The high command will decide on the next action. But responsibility has to be taken. When I was LOP in the 2013 assembly election and we could not form govt, I was told that I had failed. So I sent my resignation. It is very unfortunate that Congress faced such a defeat this time. During my father’s tenure, Congress won all 40 Lok Sabha seats in undivided Madhya Pradesh. It is unfortune that today, we lost all 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh and 10 out of 11 in Chhattisgarh,” he said.
In the statement, the former LOP has asked why so many senior functionaries and workers quit Congress and joined BJP during Patwari's tenure. He wanted to know if any steps were taken to stop the exodus.
Former LOP Singh said that the high-command should ensure that senior functionaries, like former Union minister Suresh Pachauri and former state working president Ramniwas Rawat, who joined BJP should never be accepted back. “Selfish leaders who left Congress at the time of crisis and joined BJP should never be allowed to return,” Singh said.