Another blow to Congress: Mayor from Kamal Nath's home turf Chhindwara joins BJP

In another setback to the Congress, its Chhindwara mayor joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh on Monday. Vikram Ahake, the mayor of Chhindwara, joined the BJP in the presence of Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and state party chief VD Sharma in Bhopal. 

Last week, Kamlesh Shah, the Congress legislator from Amarwada in the Chhindwara district and a close associate of party stalwart Kamal Nath, had joined the BJP. 

Chhindwara, which goes to polls in the first phase on April 19, is the home district of Congress veteran Kamal Nath. Nakul Nath, the lone Congress winner in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, is contesting from Chhindwara, which his father Kamal Nath has represented for nine terms in Parliament. 

The BJP has fielded Vivek Bunty Sahu to take on Nakul Nath. Kamal Nath is currently the MLA from the Chhindwara assembly seat. His wife Alka Nath was elected from the Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat in 1996. Incidentally, the switch to the BJP from the Congress in Chhindwara gathered speed amid speculation some weeks ago that Kamal Nath and his MP son were planning to do so. 

Earlier, it was reported that the BJP has set an ambitious target to induct 1 lakh workers of Congress in Madhya Pradesh, including disgruntled influential leaders, in its fold to achieve a clean sweep of all 29 seats. The strategy is to cripple Congress at the grassroots level and simultaneously ensure defections of senior leaders who are unhappy in the party organisation. 

In the 2019 elections, the BJP swept the state by winning 28 of 29 seats. Chhindwara was the only seat that went to Congress. The BJP has set a specific target to induct 50,000 Congress workers from Chhindwara and asked its district unit to achieve this goal, a BJP leader told news agency PTI. 

"I think around 50,000 workers, including influential leaders unhappy with Congress, have already joined the BJP," claimed MP BJP chief VD Sharma. He said that the defection of big leaders of Congress is only talked about, even though Congress is seeing the "exodus" at district, tehsil, block and booth levels across the state. 

(With inputs from PTI)