Congress' assessment goes wrong in MP, suffers humiliating defeat

Bhopal: On May 20 when Madhya Pradesh Congress in-charge Bhanwar Jitendra Singh visited Bhopal, the state unit gave him inputs that they will win at least three to five Lok Sabha seats.

Singh reviewed the party's election preparations in the presence of senior leaders and the party's Lok Sabha candidates at party headquarters in the state and returned to Delhi on the same day with inputs received from the state unit.

Following the review meeting, Singh addressed a press conference in Bhopal and claimed to win at least five seats based on inputs received from the state unit.

The seats where the Congress was confident of winning were - Chhindwara, Rajgarh, Ratlam, and Satna. On the first three seats, Congress had fielded Kamal Nath's son Nakul Nath, Digvijaya Singh and ex-Union Minister Kantilal Bhuria, respectively.

Congress was also expecting victory in the Morena Lok Sabha seat because of the internal rift within the BJP over the candidature. The party also expected a win in the Satna Lok Sabha seat.

However, when the results were announced on Tuesday (June 4) all the inputs received from the state unit were wrong as BJP swept Madhya Pradesh.

Some of the Congress leaders gave varied reasons to IANS for their loss, however, most of them said that they did not get support from the top leadership.

In Rewa Lok Sabha seat where a high anti-incumbency against BJP's sitting MP Janardan Mishra was assessed, Neelam Mishra (Congress candidate) made multiple approaches to have a public rally addressed by the party's top brass - either Priyanka Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi but it was never materialised for some unknown reasons.

A Rewa-based Congress leader said, Neelam's husband, who is a Congress MLA, had visited Delhi thrice to get a public rally arranged hoping to rope in the party's top leadership. This attempt also failed to get the top brass on board for Madhya Pradesh. Neelam Mishra lost the election against Janardan Mishra with a margin of 1.93 lakh votes.

"We fought the elections against a well-organised BJP. The result could have been in our favour had we got support from the top leadership," said a Congress leader.

Some Congress workers claimed lack of coordination between state leadership and district-level leaders is also one of the key reasons behind the humiliating defeat of the party.

"Until the Assembly elections, Jitu Patwari's politics was limited to Indore only. He could not convince voters. The cadre was completely shattered after the Assembly election loss. The new state head was more dependent on Central leadership. That is why we suffered a humiliating defeat in Madhya Pradesh," said a Congress leader.