Madhya Pradesh: Not declaring CM face part of strategy, says Rahul Gandhi

BHOPAL: Taking a jibe at Congress' challenge to the BJP's 15-year-rule in Madhya Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently said that it has three chief ministerial candidates with each pulling others down and that it cannot think of the state's development. Now, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has said that his party has not declared its chief ministerial candidate as part of its poll strategy. "Under our strategy, we have not declared the chief ministerial candidate in Rajasthan or Madhya Pradesh," Gandhi said. "Both our leaders have qualities of their own. Kamal Nath, the MP Congress president, has vast political experience and Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Congress chief whip in the Lok Sabha, is young and energetic," said Gandhi, with Nath and Scindia by his side. In the run-up to the polls, the BJP was mocking the Congress of being headless in the state. PM Modi on October 17 had claimed that more than a dozen Congress leaders were also nursing chief ministerial ambitions in the state. "The Congress has three chief ministerial candidates and over a dozen are in queue," he had said, apparently referring to Kamal Nath, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Digvijay Singh, three main leaders of the opposition party in the state. "When more than dozen people have chief ministerial ambitions, then they cannot think of people's development. You should expose their lies to public." Madhya Pradesh will go to polls on November 28. Counting of votes will take place on December 11. In the 2013 Assembly polls, the BJP had won 165 seats in the 230-member House. The Congress got 58 seats, the BSP four and one seat was won by an Independent.