Former chief minister and Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee president Kamal Nath on Monday said he had “no ambition or greed for any post”, and was ready to stay at home.
Addressing party workers in Sausar town in his home district of Chhindwara, Nath said: “I am ready to take some rest... I have no ambitions or any greed for any post. I have achieved a lot already. I have achieved to an extent perhaps any others achieved so. I am ready to stay at home.”
BJP leaders described Nath’s statement as a hint that he was planning retirement from active politics after losing the recent bypolls. Congress leaders, however, described it as a “general statement”.
Reacting to his predecessor’s comments chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, “I am not forcing anyone to retire from politics. It’s Congress’ internal matter.”
“...His [Nath’s] government fell and lost the by-elections on 19 assembly constituency seats out of 28 due to his wrong policies, in November this year. Now, he didn’t have any option but to retire from politics,” BJP’s state spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal said.
Congress MLA and former minister PC Sharma, on the other hand, said, “It was a general statement of Kamal Nath. He was asking the residents of his constituency whether they want to see him again or not, like a good politician do.”
{{/usCountry}}Congress MLA and former minister PC Sharma, on the other hand, said, “It was a general statement of Kamal Nath. He was asking the residents of his constituency whether they want to see him again or not, like a good politician do.”
{{/usCountry}}Nath later said that he was saying that he would go into retirement if the residents of Chhindwara wanted him to.
His Congress government lost majority in the assembly in March this year when 22 MLAs resigned. Three more MLAs resigned in July and yet another quit in October. Later, all of them joined the BJP.
The bypolls were held on 28 seats and the BJP won 19 of the seats to get majority in the state assembly with 126 seats against the Congress’ 96 in the 230-member assembly. The Congress won only nine seats in the bypolls.