Bhopal: Of late, the Congress has been a divided lot across several places in the country, especially in Madhya Pradesh where the party is steered by powerful factions. Hence, it didn’t come as a surprise to many when Chief Minister Kamal Nath came under fire from two of his senior party colleagues and former parliamentarians — Digvijaya Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia.
While Singh, a former chief minister, has mostly been guarded in his attacks until recently and is said to have played a role in handpicking Nath for the CM’s post, Scindia has been hitting out at the Congress-led government for a while now.
Singh recently tweeted pictures of stray cows sitting right in the middle of the Indore-Bhopal highway and hindering the normal flow of traffic.
While expressing his surprise at the absence of right wing groups and ‘gau bhakts’, Singh urged the CM to immediately shift the cows to sheds and emerge as a bigger protector of the bovine species. Many in the political circles saw it as an indirect swipe at his own government for the state of affairs on cow conservation.
Soon after, Nath put out a series of tweets in which he wrote about the measures adopted by his government to make cities free of stray cattle.
He said, “As the fields are wet during the rainy season, cows prefer to sit on the streets and even meet with accidents. The authorities are working on a detailed strategy to safeguard these animals. Directions have also been issued for early completion of 1,000 cowsheds.”
By next year, the government planned to build 3,000 gaushalas and only after that, the stray cattle menace would come down drastically, Nath added.
Singh was also recently seen sharing dais with party rebel and former MP Premchand Guddu in Indore and has even called revenue department employees corrupt.
Meanwhile, Scindia, the former Guna MP, who has been critical of the government on several occasions, recently said in Bhind that illegal mining hadn’t stopped even months after the Congress came to power.
He also claimed that Nath’s government had only waived farm loans up to Rs 50,000 and not Rs 2 lakh as promised. Soon after, the CM said the former was right in his statement.
“He is right. We had said we will waive Rs 50,000 in the first instalment. Next, we will waive upto Rs 2 lakh. I agree that it was a promise of Rs 2 lakh. I believe public trusts their leader,” Nath was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
While the BJP has called it a vindication of their long-standing claims, Scindia said at a recent meeting in Sheopur that he would continue to speak for the section of people whose voices won’t be heard by the state government.
Scindia is also said to have written at least half a dozen letters to Nath mentioning complaints of the party workers. Ever since the party high command handed over the state’s reins to Nath after the Assembly elections held last year, Scindia has been sulking.
At a time when most of the ministers are having a tough time dealing with charges of infighting in the ruling camp, PWD Minister Sajjan Singh Verma said it was difficult to corner someone like Nath who has the stature of Abhimanyu (a mythological character from Mahabharat and son of Arjun).
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