After facing a debacle in the recently concluded Assembly elections, Congress has made a major reshuffle in the party in Madhya Pradesh. Senior party leader Kamal Nath has been removed as the state Congress chief. He has been replaced by former Rau MLA Jitu Patwari.
Meanwhile, tribal leader Umang Singhar will be the new Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly now. He is an MLA from Gandhwani Assembly constituency. Ater MLA Hemant Katare has been made the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.
"The Congress president has appointed Shri Jitu Patwari as the president of Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee, with immediate effect," an official communication from the party said. "The party appreciates the contributions of outgoing PCC president, Shri Kamal Nath," it added.
Kamal Nath was Congress' CM candidate
The reshuffle comes days after the Congress was routed in the state with the party just managing to get 66 seats in 230-member Legislative Assembly. Kamal Nath bore the brunt of this loss as the party had gone to polls under his leadership. He was declared as the chief ministerial candidate by the Congress party.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) registered a massive victory and garnered 163 seats. However, Kamal Nath managed to maintain his several decade-old stranglehold on Chhindwara as he won the seat by 36,594 votes. He defeated BJP leader Vivek Bunty Sahu. In the 2018 polls, Nath's victory margin against Sahu was 25,837 votes. Since 1980, Nath has won the Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat a record nine times.
Who is Jitu Patwari?
Born in Bijalpur in 1973, Jit Patwari has also served as Cabinet minister in the state. He was the Cabinet Minister of Higher Education, Youth and Sports Affairs in the state government after the Congress party formed the government in Madhya Pradesh after 15 years but resigned after political turmoil in 2020 in the state. He first became an MLA in 2013 from Rau Vidhan Sabha.
The BJP, which had been battling close to 20 years of incumbency, won a resounding mandate bagging 163 seats. Madhya Pradesh has been a BJP stronghold for the last twenty years, barring a 15-month tenure of the Kamal Nath-led government after the Congress came to power in the 2018 polls.
ALSO READ: 'Kamal Nath responsible for Congress defeat in Madhya Pradesh': Sanjay Raut on election results
