Kamal Nath refers to Scindia as kin, signals thaw in ties

Bhopal: In a sign of a thaw in relations between Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath and AICC general secretary Jyotiraditya Scindia, the former on Wednesday posted an old photo of the duo on Twitter along with a caption referring to the latter as his ‘family member’.

The post comes in the wake of a series of meetings between the two leaders in recent times after prolonged alleged strained relations betw-een them, triggered by the Congress leadershi-p’s decision to choose Mr Nath as chief minister of the state after the party returned to power in MP in the November 2018 assembly poll, leaving Mr Scindia sulking.

Wishing Mr Scindia on his birthday, Mr Nath said he considered him as his family member. The post has become a subject of discussion in Congress circles.

Mr Scindia had earlier targeted the chief minister for having failed on several fronts, particularly for the latter’s failure to fully implement his promise to waive crop loans to the tune of '2 lakh for farmers in the state.

Mr Nath had even chosen not to field Mr Scindia in the party’s campaign in the crucial byelection to the Jhabua (ST) Assembly seat in MP, held last month, in spite of the fact that the latter had played a key role as a campaign committee chairman to ens-ure the Congress’ return to power after a gap of 15 years in the 2018 MP Assembly elections.

Incidentally, Mr Scindia was holding public meetings in Gwalior-Chambal region in MP criticising the state government for not being able to implement the farm loan waiver scheme, when ruling Congress under the leadership of the chief minister was drumming up support for the party candidate in the bypoll.

Congress inched closer to majority in the MP Assembly by increasing its strength in the 230-member house to 115 following the party’s victory in the Jhabua byelection.

Significantly, Mr Scindia, who was believed to be an aspirant for the post of Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) of MP as well as the Rajya Sabha ticket from the state, had changed his tone last week saying that the state government was doing well.