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Organisational problems caused Congress debacle in MP: Kamal Nath

Senior Congress leader and former Union minister Kamal Nath today said the outcome of this election has once again put coalition politics to test.

Talking to UNI in Bhopal before leaving for Delhi, he said the next few years would decide the future of the coalition era in the country.

Expressing doubts whether the Bharatiya Janata Party, heading a motley coalition, would be able to perform well if it formed a government at the Centre, he said now there were 24 parties as against the previous 18.

This election has also proved that the BJP alone cannot come to power and it has to ride piggyback on regional parties and others having conflicting ideologies and agendas, he said.

Pointing out that the Congress had entered into only seat adjustments with some parties in certain states, without having a formal alliance, the former Union minister said his party had won the majority of the seats on its own.

Asked whether the 'Sonia versus Atal' factor had influenced the outcome of the election, Kamal Nath said, ''Whatever we have won is because of Sonia Gandhi's leadership. She would and should continue to head the party,'' he added.

Kamal Nath said the Congress has to bring forward the new generation to play a more effective role to further strengthen the party.

Asked about the poor performance of the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, he admitted that there were some organisational problems due to which the party had not been able to get its message across effectively to the people.

''We could not structure our campaign well and convert into votes the feelings of the people,'' he said adding that the election results do not indicate that there is any erosion in the popular base of the Congress.

Asked whether individual efforts of the candidates resulted in the huge margins for him and Congress general secretary Madhavrao Scindia, Kamal Nath said, ''We belong to the party and its role cannot be minimised.''

The former Union minister parried a question about the reasons which led to the defeat of former chief minister Motilal Vora in Rajnandgaon and Congress spokesman Ajit Jogi in Shahdol (reserved) saying that these were yet to be analysed. He dismissed the possibility of sabotage in any of the constituencies.

Asked what went wrong for the Congress in the Chhattisgarh region, Kamal Nath said the issues that influenced the polls in the region have to be analysed. If the issue of the creation of a separate Chhattisgarh was there, the BJP would have been finished as it did not honour its commitment for carving out the new state, he added.

UNI

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