The Madhya Pradesh Congress has kicked-off it’s campaign for the Legislative Assembly elections with five promises on the lines of Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka, where it won in December last year and in May this year. Besides, the Kamal Nath led MP Congress has apparently opted for ‘soft Hindutva’ to diminish any possibility of an attack on religious grounds by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and it’s saffron allies.
The strategy planners of the state Congress have planned to set up at least two separate war rooms with multiple tasks — execution of the plans on the ground and social media. Highly placed sources privy to the development said one war room will be operated from Kamal Nath’s son and the only Congress Member of Parliament (MP) from Madhya Pradesh, Nakul Nath’s residence, while the second one will be set up at MLA Laxman Singh’s residence, the younger brother of ex-CM and Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh.
As social media platforms have become crucial factors in the elections, the Congress has expanded its team from the state to the district level and from the block to the booth level. The process of selection for its social media teams has already been done a couple of months earlier, and training sessions are underway at the grassroot level.
As Kamal Nath has been declared the biggest devotee of Lord Hanuman, and he had played an active role in getting a 101 feet tall statue of Lord Hanuman installed in his Chhindwara constituency that elected him 10 times as a Member of Parliament and Assembly, his social media team will take forward this message to the ground level with multiple resources. One among them will be mythological stories in short videos.
“These mythological stories will be taken from all the religions and will be narrated aiming to send positive messages to the people. Stories of heroes like Birsa Munda, Chhatrapati Shivaji etc from different communities will be included. We are working on this concept,” said a Congress office bearer requesting not to be named.
Kamal Nath, a veteran warhorse with over 45 years of political experience along with two-time chief minister Digvijaya Singh, who has developed himself more as a leader of the party’s workers, will marshal the resources to corner incumbent Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
A senior journalist talking to IANS said “At present, the Congress is well entrenched in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, both politically and organisationally.” In 2018, the Congress had won just five seats more than the BJP and had formed the government in Madhya Pradesh after a gap of 15 years. However, the Kamal Nath government fell in March 2020 due to the dramatic defections by Jyotiraditya Scindia and his 22 loyalist MLAs. Therefore, as insiders claimed, Kamal Nath has set a target of 130-140 seats this time.
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