Nath, 77, would be the tenth former CM of the Congress to depart the celebration within the final 10 years, becoming a member of the ranks of Maharashtra’s Ashok Chavan – who switched to the BJP earlier this week – Mukul Sangma (Meghalaya), Amarinder Singh (Punjab), Ghulam Nabi Azad (Jammu and Kashmir), Vijay Bahuguna (Uttarakhand), late Ajit Jogi (Chhattisgarh), S M Krishna (Karnataka), Narayan Rane (Maharashtra) and Giridhar Gamang (Odisha) who returned to the celebration just lately.

Amid hypothesis of his change to the BJP, Nath reached Delhi from Chhindwara Saturday afternoon. Asked whether or not he was becoming a member of the BJP, he informed reporters, “Why are you all getting excited. If there is something like that I will inform you first.”

On whether or not he was denying it, Nath mentioned, “Inkaar ki baat nahin hai (this is not about denying it). This (that he was switching sides) you are saying. You are getting excited. I am not excited, iss taraf ya uss taraf (either way).”

His son Nakul’s move to drop “Congress” from his social media accounts, nonetheless, fuelled the hypothesis.

Madhya Pradesh BJP spokesperson Narendra Saluja additionally tweeted an image of the father-son duo with the caption ‘Jai Shri Ram’.

Four-time Chhindwara MLA and former state minister Deepak Saxena informed The Indian Express that “talks were underway” on Kamal Nath becoming a member of the BJP and that this was due to lack of growth in Chhindwara.

“All our MLAs are from Congress and yet the funds were not released to Chhindwara. For the sake of Chhindwara’s development, this move has happened. Kamal Nath was constantly attacked and blamed for the Assembly (election) loss. In two-three days, you will see the results of these talks,” Saxena, a long-time ally of Nath, mentioned.

Nath just lately hosted a closed-door assembly with senior Chhindwara leaders the place he mentioned future election methods. Chhindwara Congress district president Vishwanath Okte informed The Indian Express, “Kamal Nath discussed strategies for Lok Sabha. The positions that had to be handed out and event planning. He did not discuss anything about joining the BJP.”

The state BJP unit is in the meantime in a huddle. “Kamal Nath is going to join the BJP for sure. We have been in talks with him ever since he was snubbed over Jitu Patwari. He knew that Chhindwara was going to be a BJP seat in the upcoming election and took the smart step,” a senior BJP chief mentioned.

Nath’s confidant Sajjan Singh Verma addressed a press convention in Indore the place he spoke about eradicating the Congress image from his personal social media account. “If the person with whom I did politics for 40 years – if from his profile it is removed, then even from my profile it should be removed. Kamal Nath has not taken any decision yet. Maan, samman aur swabhimaan. People do politics because of that. They take a different path. I am not saying Kamal Nath had experienced something similar. Wherever Kamal Nath goes, Sajjan Verma will follow.”

Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Jitu Patwari dismissed the “rumours”: “Can you imagine Indira’s third son leaving the Congress? Even in your dreams, can such a thought occur that Kamal Nath, under whose guidance we fought the Assembly elections just two months ago, would leave the party?”

Senior leaders within the state Congress, nonetheless, expressed some nervousness. Said one celebration chief, “Kamal Nath has not dismissed any of the rumours. He has not said even once that he would take strict action against those spreading rumours.”

Nath’s exit could be an enormous blow for the Gandhi household given his shut private ties, going again to the times of Indira Gandhi. Nath, a Doon School mate of Sanjay Gandhi, joined the Youth Congress within the Seventies and shortly turned a key member of Sanjay’s inside circle with the likes of Jagmohan, V C Shukla, Bansi Lal, Om Mehta, Jagdish Tytler and later Akbar Dumpy Ahmad – a coterie that’s usually blamed for all that went improper throughout and after the Emergency.

Nath, who hails from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, was rewarded for his friendship with Sanjay with the Chhindwara seat in Madhya Pradesh within the 1980 Lok Sabha polls. Chhindwara and Nagaur in Rajasthan have been the one two seats the Congress had gained within the 1977 elections submit Emergency when the celebration was worn out within the Hindi heartland. Since then, Nath gained 9 Lok Sabha elections from Chhindwara, dropping solely as soon as.He was one in all Sanjay’s pointsmen who used to drum up political assist for the Emergency. It is alleged that it was he who met Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray on Sanjay’s behalf and enlisted his assist for the Emergency.

“Sanjay Gandhi used Nath, then his ace lieutenant, to start ‘back channel’ talks with Bal Thackeray. Founder of the Shiv Sena and known as the strongman of Maharashtra, Thackeray had been a strong critic of the Congress. After the Emergency in 1975, Sanjay spoke to him on the phone and sent Nath to Mumbai to meet him… Thackeray agreed to support the Emergency. ‘It’s good for the country,’ he told Nath. Then he added, ‘Once the law and order situation improves, the Emergency can be lifted’,” Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has written in her ebook, ‘How Prime Ministers Decide’.

Nath had been a minister within the P V Narasimha Rao authorities and later within the UPA I and II governments led by Manmohan Singh. He was one in all Rao’s interlocutors who held parleys with L Ok Advani within the months earlier than the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

Despite being within the Congress for many years, Nath was by no means actually energetic in Madhya Pradesh politics. He was all the time a Delhi chief, identified for his hyperlinks with the corporates. He turned energetic in MP politics solely in 2018 when he was appointed the state Congress chief. Later that yr, Rahul Gandhi anointed him because the CM after the Congress gained the Assembly elections, a lot to the displeasure of the youthful celebration chief Jyotiraditya Scindia, who switched to the BJP in March 2020 after toppling the Nath authorities.

The exit of Nath, who was by no means a regional satrap with deep organisational assist, is therefore going to be extra a psychological blow to the Congress, coming because it does proper forward of the Lok Sabha elections, relatively than an enormous organisational setback. The Congress is already battling a notion gaining floor that the Opposition INDIA bloc is adrift and the Congress is dealing with desertions.