Ahead of polls, Kamal Nath rolls out red carpet for Bageshwar Dham sarkar

Chhindwara: Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath on Saturday welcomed Bageshwar Dham's head priest Dhirendra Shastri in his pocket borough Chhindwara by performing his "aarti" along with his MP son Nakul Nath, a gesture viewed as soft Hindutva ahead of assembly elections.

Notably, Shastri, an advocate of Hindutva, is on a visit to Chhindwara on an invitation extended by Nath senior.

Nath and his son performed “aarti” of the 27-year-old preacher after he alighted from an aircraft.

En route to his preaching venue, thousands lined up on both sides of the road and showered flower petals on Shastri, who returned the gesture by greeting people with folded hands.

Before starting his sermon this evening, Shastri said Kamal Nath had visited him in Bageshwar Dham, his home base at Chhattarpur, in February and invited him to Simariya village to take darshan of Lord Hanuman.

The preachings of Shastri are often laced with controversial statements and demands for the establishment of Hindu Rashtra.

Kamal Nath had installed the over 101-foot tall idol of Lord Hanuman in Simariya 15 years ago, believed to be the tallest at that time in the country.

In a bid to turn the tables on the ruling BJP, the opposition Congress is trying to remodel its image by reaching out to Hindu voters ahead of assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, due later this year.

In June, Hindutva outfit Bajrang Sena merged with Congress in the presence of Kamal Nath, who had led Congress to victory in the last assembly polls.

Bajrang Sena leaders are said to be close to former minister Deepak Joshi, who had quit BJP to join Congress.

BS members had presented a mace and memorabilia to Nath and raised slogans of Jai Shriram.

In the 2019 general elections, the Congress managed to retain the Chhindwara seat with a reduced margin while the BJP went on to win the rest 28 Lok Sabha seats in MP.

Kamal Nath was first elected from Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat in 1980. Since then, he won this seat eight times. He has lost only a bypoll from Chhindwara. In 2019, his son Nakul Nath won the Chhindwara LS seat.

Chhindwara falls under the Mahakoshal or Jabalpur division which comprises eight districts including Jabalpur, Katni, Seoni, Narsinghpur, Balaghat, Mandla, and Dindori.

In the 2018 Assembly polls, the Congress won 24 seats while the BJP 13 seats out of the 38 Assembly segments in this region. One seat was pocketed by an Independent candidate with a Congress leaning.

Overall, the Congress had won 114 of 230 seats in that election while the BJP finished second with 109 seats.

The Congress went on to form a coalition government with the support of Independents, BSP, and SP under Kamal Nath. However, that government collapsed after nearly 18 months when a string of MLAs of Congress joined the BJP led by former MP Jyotiraditya Scindia, which paved the way for the return of BJP's Shivraj Singh Chouhan as chief minister for another term.