Kamal Nath — former Chief Minister-turned-Madhya Pradesh Congress chief — has been asked to step down from the post, sources said a day after the party got decimated in a state they were sure of winning. The results yesterday showed the BJP had won 163 of the state’s 230 seats — more than double the Congress tally of 66.

The figures made it clear that the situation could not be further from the Congress reading of it.

The party, led by Mr Nath, was convinced that there was huge anti-incumbency against the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.

So convinced of victory was the party that on the morning of the counting day, posters came up congratulating Mr Nath on his victory. By noon, they had to be pulled down as the BJP established a comfortable lead.

With the party being convinced that anti-incumbency against the BJP would push the election in their direction, the Congress campaign strategy lacked an edge.

The party did not hold massive protests against the BJP to register its presence. The number of public meetings and rallies they held was almost half that of the BJP. This affected communication with the voters and made the party unable to carry its message across, leaders confided in private.

Mr Nath’s other move — denying the promised five to seven seats to INDIA bloc partner Samajwadi Party — has earned it the wrath of the alliance partners.

Sharing of seats at the state level was expected to be the blueprint for the bloc’s one-on-one strategy for next year’s general elections — dubbed a do-or-die battle with the BJP.

“The Congress has not been able to understand the ground situation in Madhya Pradesh. What harm could have happened if they had given 5-7 seats to Akhilesh Yadav? What have they won now?” National Conference chief Omar Abdullah was quoted as saying by news agency Press Trust of India. 

“Judging the results of INDIA alliance in the state elections, if the situation is like this in the future, we cannot win,” he told reporters yesterday.

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the Congress could have won Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan, but “some votes were cut by INDIA parties”.

“This is the truth. We had suggested a seat-sharing arrangement. They lost because of division of votes,” she told the state assembly today.

Senior Congress leader Manickam Tagore underscored the importance of alliances and said it is the state-level leaders in the Hindi heartland “who need to understand it”.

“It is tough for the Congress to understand the importance of alliances because in states like MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan there is no alliance politics,” Manickam Tagore told NDTV.

A section of party workers also confided that the party needs a new face and fresh energy in the state, where it has been led for decades by Kamal Nath and Digvijay Singh, both in their late ’70s. They pointed to Telangana where a new young leader, Revanth Reddy, has crafted a massive victory.

The BJP swept the elections in Madhya Pradesh despite ruling there since 2003 – barring a 15-month period after 2018 – and the question on everyone’s lips now is who the next chief minister will be.

The party’s strategy of not projecting Shivraj Singh Chouhan as the chief ministerial face, and banking on collective leadership and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity, paid off. The BJP bagged 163 of the state’s 230 seats, reducing the Congress to just 66.

It was speculated that Mr Chouhan was being sidelined with seven MPs, including three Union ministers, contesting in the Assembly polls. But the claim of the longest-serving chief minister in the history of the BJP to the top job has been strengthened with the party’s stupendous performance.

The other names doing the rounds are of Union ministers Prahlad Singh Patel and Jyotiraditya Scindia (both leaders from the Other Backward Classes, which make up around half of the state’s population), BJP National General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

The dark horses in the race include two Brahmin leaders: state party chief and first-time MP VD Sharma, and fifth-time MLA and a minister in the outgoing state cabinet, Rajendra Shukla, both of whom hail from the Vindhya region.

Though a large section of the state party believes that Mr Chouhan may remain the chief minister at least till the next Lok Sabha polls, which may be less than six months away, others believe that the 166 seats won by the party – 47 more than the 116 needed for a majority – may give the party’s central leadership the cushion it needs to make an alternative choice.

Speaking to NDTV, Mr Chouhan, who is popularly known as ‘Mama’, said “None of us make any decisions about ourselves. We are part of a bigger mission. We are workers. We do whatever the party decides.”

Mr Vijayvargiya comes from the Malwa-Nimar region where the BJP won 47 out of the 66 seats. The leader is seen as close to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, but his name cropping up in a rape complaint in West Bengal may dent his chief ministerial prospects.

When he was asked about Mr Chouhan’s Ladli Behna Yojna playing a role in the party’s victory in Madhya Pradesh, Mr Vijayvargiya had said ‘Modi magic’ was the only factor behind the BJP’s wins in the state, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.

“Was there a Ladli Behna scheme in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan? Some of you journalists are trying to build a narrative. What was common in the three places was Modiji’s leadership. The BJP won the elections in MP, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh due to the leadership of PM Modi,” he said.

Among the two OBC leaders, Prahlad Singh Patel, who worked extensively for the party’s success in Bundelkhand, Mahakoshal, central MP and the Gwalior-Chambal region, is an old warhorse. Opting for the Lodhi caste leader may also boost the party’s poll prospects in adjoining Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand and Rohilkhand regions.

Jyotiraditya Scindia, who is believed to have played a key role in the party’s victory in the Gwalior-Chambal region – where it won 18 seats compared to 7 in 2018 – as well as some parts of the Malwa and Vindhya region, is also being seen as a strong contender, particularly due to his reported proximity to the PM. It was Mr Scindia’s rebellion in 2020 that had led to the falling of the Congress government in 2020, paving the way for the BJP’s return in the state.

But, with the former Congress leader being just three and half years old in the BJP, him being made the chief minister may ruffle feathers among old party hands, something the leadership may be keen to avoid, especially ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

Mr Scindia has said he is not in the race. In an exclusive interview with NDTV, the civil aviation minister had said the question of him gunning for the state’s top job does not arise as he has always been a party worker and will remain so.

Narendra Singh Tomar, who is the Union Agriculture Minister and the party’s state poll management committee chief, is also seen as a strong contender, but the controversy generated by his son Devendra Singh Tomar purportedly being seen making monetary deals in a video may hurt his prospects.

After spearheading the separate Telangana movement and leading his party to significant victories since 2014, a third term in office eluded Bharat Rasthra Samithi supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao, who lost to the Congress in the legislative assembly polls. This was BRS’ first defeat since the birth of Telangana in 2014.

The Congress won 64 seats in the 119-member Telangana assembly, while the BRS got only 39.

A week, it is said, is a long time in politics and, by that yardstick, nine-and-a-half years is an aeon. That is the anti-incumbency challenge that the BRS could not overcome.

In an extensive poll campaign, the party tried to highlight all its welfare schemes for the poor. However, the implementation of some schemes had given an inordinate amount of power to MLAs to decide on the distribution of funds, leading to allegations of discrimination as well as corruption.

KCR’s son and IT minister KT Rama Rao insisted that job creation and GDP growth in Telangana have been the highest in the country, but many sections complained that getting employment has been an issue.

Ahead of the elections, KTR had advised the Chief Minister to bring in fresh faces and not give tickets to nearly 30 MLAs, against whom anti-incumbency seemed to be building.

KCR did warn these MLAs to buck up and improve their performance but ended up giving poll tickets to all of them. The result: most of these seats went to the Congress.

On the other hand, 9 out of the 10 leaders who represented BRS for the first time emerged victorious.

To make a comeback, the party will also have to find a way to connect to the rural voters. Nearly half of the BRS’ 39 seats came from the Hyderabad region, where KTR’s pitch for development and IT parks seemed to resonate with the voters.

Congress staked claim to form the government on the night of the counting itself as experts say the party has several factions and is jittery despite winning a clear majority. The Telangana result was the only silver lining in an otherwise dismal day for the Congress, which lost in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and failed to dislodge the BJP from Madhya Pradesh as well.