Sources have revealed that the Congress party has suffered a significant setback in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as it is believed that former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath and his son Nakul are considering joining the BJP. However, it is important to note that there has been no official confirmation from either Kamal Nath or Nakul Nath regarding this matter.
Adding fuel to the speculation, Narendra Saluja, who previously served as Kamal Nath’s media advisor and is now a spokesperson for the BJP, shared a photograph of the former Chief Minister and his son in Bhopal. Alongside the image, Saluja captioned it with the phrase, “Jai Shri Ram.”
Nakul Nath, the Member of Parliament from Chhindwara, has recently eliminated the mention of ‘Congress’ from his profile biography on X.
The father-son duo is scheduled to arrive in Delhi today, as per the latest information. Congress leader Digvijaya Singh addressed the speculation by stating that he had a conversation with Kamal Nath on Friday night. Singh emphasized that it would be unrealistic to expect someone who began their political journey with the Nehru-Gandhi family to sever ties with them. He firmly stated that such expectations should not even be entertained. In a related development, Sajjan Singh Verma, a Congress MLA from Sonkatch in Madhya Pradesh, has reportedly removed the party’s logo from his social media profiles. Verma is known to be one of Kamal Nath’s most ardent supporters.
This speculation arises shortly after Ashok Chavan, the former Chief Minister of Maharashtra, joined the BJP, becoming the latest Congress leader to leave the party. Chavan, who had been associated with the Congress for forty years, resigned from all party positions and as the MLA from Bhokar constituency on February 12. The following day, he officially joined the BJP and subsequently filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections on February 15. Chavan’s departure from the Congress followed the resignations of senior Maharashtra Congress leaders Baba Siddique and Milind Deora. Siddique aligned himself with the Ajit Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), while Deora joined the Shiv Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde.