Bhopal : The complete washout of Congress in Madhya Pradesh in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections has triggered infighting in the party here with a senior leader seeking to fix accountability for it on the state leadership.
Former Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Ajay Singh on Friday demanded the AICC leadership to review the tenure of state party chief Jitu Patwari in the wake of the party, for the first time, drawing a blank in the just-concluded LS polls in the state.
“In 1984 LS polls, Congress had won all the 40 seats in the undivided Madhya Pradesh. The party for the first time lost all the 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh in the 2024 general elections. In Chhattisgarh, carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000, too, the party could win one out of 11 seats”, Mr Singh said.
Mr Singh said that this was the worst debacle faced by the party in any elections in the state.
“Accountability should be fixed for the rout of the party in LS elections in Madhya Pradesh. The tenure of state Congress president Mr Patwari should be reviewed”, he demanded.
Holding the recent mass exodus in the party as one of the reasons for the party’s rout in the LS polls in Madhya Pradesh, he said that responsibility should be fixed on the state party leadership for not being able to arrest the desertion of leaders.
“Why no one in the party tried to stop the exodus of leaders in Congress in Madhya Pradesh”, he wondered.
Mr Singh also took an indirect dig at two Congress veterans and former chief ministers Kamal Nath and Digvijay Singh for not being able to come out of Chhindwara and Rajgarh LS constituencies respectively to campaign for the party candidates in other seats in the state.
While Mr Nath was camping in Chhindwara to campaign for his son Nakul was seeking re-election in the seat then, Mr Singh was contesting from Rajgarh LS constituency.
Without taking Mr Nath’s name, Mr Singh said that the veteran leader’s alleged vacillation over leaving Congress to join BJP had demoralised the party cadres.
He was referring to the fortnight-long suspense over Mr Nath’s political future triggered by speculations over his quitting Congress a couple of months before the April-May general elections.
Mr Nath, who initially preferred not to respond to the speculation, later clarified that he was not leaving Congress.
He also held that the collapse of 18-month-old Kamal Nath government was one of the reasons for the washout of the party in the LS polls in the state.
