Chief of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) Kamal Nath was appointed as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh late on Thursday, December 13, ANI reported.
There will not be a deputy chief minister in Madhya Pradesh.
The announcement finally ended the suspense about who would become chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia were the two front-runners for the position.
The Congress sent its best wishes to Nath on Twitter late on Thursday.
Earlier, Scindia said in a tweet, “It is not a race, it is not about kursi, we are here to serve the people of Madhya Pradesh. I am leaving for Bhopal and you will get to know the decision today.”
The decision came after hours of deliberation over the issue by Congress President Rahul Gandhi and the party’s top brass. However, it was marked by controversy as reports emerged that Wikipedia had announced Nath as chief minister even before the Congress could officially make the announcement. The Congress is yet to announce its Chief Minister in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
Nath’s appointment has also drawn criticism from the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). SAD’s prominent leaders have warned the Congress of repercussions if Nath is appointed as chief minister.
“Sikhs would launch a nation-wide protest if Kamal Nath is chosen as the Chief Minister in Madhya Pradesh,” SAD leader and lawmaker from Delhi, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
With wins in 114 seats, the Congress party had not done enough to secure a clear majority, but managed to scrape past the halfway mark with the help of the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party.
After winning Madhya Pradesh, the Congress is poised to form governments in two other states Chhattisgarh, where it has the majority, and Rajasthan, where it fell short of the halfway mark by a single seat.
Who is Kamal Nath?
Born in Kanpur, Kamal Nath will be the first Congressman to govern Madhya Pradesh since Digvijaya Singh, who was succeeded by Uma Bharti in 2003. Since then, BJP had ruled in Madhya Pradesh. Outgoing chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan ran the state for 13 of those years.
From being appointed as Madhya Pradesh Congress chief just seven months before elections to steering the party to victory after an electoral drought of 15 years in the state, Nath has retained his track record by being the Congress’s go-to man for party cadres and allies.
Nath was born in Kanpur to an established business family, and has worked with three generations of Gandhis Indira, Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul.
Ever since he was appointed as the state Congress chief, Nath has had to deal with the tag of being an outsider to the politics of Madhya Pradesh. Brought up in Kolkata, Nath never really dabbled in state politics.
Naths connection with Madhya Pradesh can be traced back to 1979, when former prime minister Indira Gandhi had described him as her third son who helped her take on the Morarji Desai-led government in the same year.
While introducing him to the people of Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh, Gandhi had said: This is my third son. Please vote for him. That eventually saw the start of the slogan Indira ke do haath, Sanjay Gandhi aur Kamal Nath”, according to an Indian Express report.
In an interview with the Indian Express, Nath asserted that his party would focus on improving Madhya Pradesh’s fiscal health and exposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his policies, including the Goods and Services Tax regime and demonetisation.
I am worried about the fiscal health of Madhya Pradesh and we will have to do some innovative out-of-the box thinking on how resources can be raised for the state, Nath said in the interview. We will have to do something new since there has been such a drain on resources, he added.
Elton Gomes is a staff writer at Qrius