Scindia changes tack in MP poll campaign, meets local leaders on their home turf

In a major shift in the style of functioning of the Madhya Pradesh Congress in the run-up to the assembly polls, campaign committee head Jyotiraditya Scindia is meeting local Congress leaders on their home turf instead of calling them to Bhopal.

In a major shift in the style of functioning of the Madhya Pradesh Congress in the run-up to the assembly polls, campaign committee head Jyotiraditya Scindia is meeting local Congress leaders on their home turf instead of calling them to Bhopal. Local leaders and party workers say this electoral strategy is injecting vigour into their campaign.

On Friday, Jyotiraditya Scindia held a divisional level meeting in Hoshangabad, where he discussed election strategy and distributed work among committee members. (Mujeeb Faruqui/HT Photo)

The Congress has been out of power in MP since 2003 and is trying to unseat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by pursuing a vigorous ground-level campaign.

“Yes, this is the first time in the history of Madhya Pradesh election strategy that we are reaching out to the party workers and local leaders in their own home ground and the response has been very encouraging, as we have got genuine feedback from local leaders. In the past month, of the 10 divisions, I have already covered 8 and I will visit Indore tomorrow (Saturday) followed by Ujjain, and everywhere thousands of party workers have thronged the meeting. This will be followed by visiting each of the 230 assembly constituencies of MP,” said Scindia.

On Friday, Scindia along with senior Congress leader Suresh Pachauri held a divisional level meeting in Hoshangabad, where he discussed election strategy and distributed work among the committee members. This was followed by meeting with groups of intellectuals from the area to get their feedback and then a party workers’ meet where Scindia urged them to be united and fight “not for power but for the sake of people of Madhya Pradesh who are suffering from the misrule of Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s government”.

“There is a basic difference between the Congress and the BJP. For the BJP, politics is a way to power, for the Congress politics is only a means to serve the people,” said Scindia.

Of the 11 assembly seats that fall under the Hoshangabad LS constituency, 10 are with the BJP and the Congress only has Harda.

State BJP spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal said, “What they are doing is nothing new and I don’t think it is going to have an impact. Their party president Kamal Nath has hardly visited any district headquarters and is shuttling between Delhi and Chhindwara with a stopover in Bhopal.”