Congress mayor from Kamal Nath’s home turf Chhindwara joins BJP

Bhopal: In another setback to the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, its leader and Chhindwara mayor joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh on Monday morning.

Vikram Ahake, the mayor of Chhindwara, joined the BJP in the presence of MP Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and state party chief VD Sharma in state capital Bhopal.

Last week, Kamlesh Shah, the Congress legislator from Amarwada in Chhindwara district and a close associate of party stalwart Kamal Nath, had joined the BJP.

Chhindwara, which goes to polls in the first phase on April 19, is the home district of former state CM Nath.

Nakul Nath, the lone Congress winner in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, has filed his nomination papers from Chhindwara, which his father Kamal Nath has represented for nine terms in Parliament.

The BJP has fielded Vivek Bunty Sahu from this seat.

Kamal Nath is currently the MLA from the Chhindwara assembly seat. His wife Alka Nath was elected from the Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat in 1996.

Incidentally, the switch to the BJP from the Congress in Chhindwara gathered speed amid speculation some weeks ago that Kamal Nath and his MP son were planning to do so.

However, the father-son duo had called such news a creation of the media.