BHOPAL: The Congress will soon zero in on chief ministerial candidate to take on Shivraj Singh Chouhan in assembly polls scheduled next year. The name of the candidate is likely to be finalized within the ongoing month.
All-India Congress Committee vice-president Rahul Gandhi is mulling a complete overhaul of party organisation in the state. Even the state unit chief will be changed.
Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia are frontrunners in the race. Supporters of both leaders are keeping a watch on developments within the party and keenly awaiting the announcement.
Meanwhile, both leaders are busy improving their rapport with senior party leaders so that they do not face any difficulty in uniting the party so that they do not face any problem while trying to stop the BJP juggernaut.
Scindia, who in the past used Bhopal as a stopover on his way to and from Delhi and Guna, now prefers to spend sometime in the state capital. On Tuesday, he drove to residence of former assembly deputy speaker Hazarilal Raghuvanshi and paid a courtesy to the ailing veteran. Raghuvanshi did not disappoint and issued a statement backing Scindia. In fact, Scindia is making a determined effort to make inroads into other camps.
During his previous visits to the city, Scindia visited former PCC president Suresh Pachauri and MLA Mukesh Nayak to solicit their support. He has been consistently insisting that projecting a chief ministerial face will prove beneficial to the party at the hustings.
On the other hand, Kamalnath has already asked his supporters to start preparing for the elections at the ground level. Due to his wide acceptability, Kamalnath is confident that leadership would favour him as leader of the party in the state.
Congress Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tankha has been mandated with the task of ensuring that both front runners work in tandem irrespective of who is chosen to lead the party. Tankha may also get some important responsibility in the party setup before the polls.
Both Scindia and Nath see no threat from the Diggi camp. He has already been divested of the charge of Karnataka and Goa. Besides, he also does not enjoy good image in the state. Both the leaders are sure that the party would not opt for a Diggi-camp follower.
It is amply clear that neither PCC president Arun Yadav nor Leader of Opposition in Vidhan Sabha Ajay Singh would be party’s chief ministerial face.
