Congress on a Temple Visiting Spree to Win Madhya Pradesh

After the litmus test of Gujarat and Karnataka, Congress is now on a temple spree in an attempt to win the assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, where the party has not been able to come to power since 2003.

From September onwards, Congress President Rahul Gandhi will formally launch his Madhya Pradesh assembly election campaign with a visit to the famous Lord Shiva temple at Omkareshwar.

As in the recent assembly elections of Gujarat and Karnataka, Rahul Gandhi will also be going on bus yatras across the state during his campaign.

The decision was taken on Tuesday morning at the Congress chief’s residence, where Rahul Gandhi reviewed the party’s strength for Madhya Pradesh. Senior leaders who attended the meeting included MP Congress chief Kamal Nath, Lok Sabha member Jyotiraditya Scindia, Suresh Pachouri, Arun Yadav, and leader of Opposition Ajay Singh.

Earlier, it was the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and senior Congress leader, Digvijaya Singh, who proceeded with a six-month long, non-political, Narmada Padyatra. The 3,300 km long yatra concluded on April 9.

Chhindwara MP Kamal Nath had also paid a series of temple visits across the length and breadth of the state after becoming the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee President.

On May 2, a day after he reached Bhopal, Kamal Nath first visited the Lalghati Hanuman Temple and then proceeded to Ujjain to visit the Mahakaal temple.

From Ujjain, Nath proceeded to Datia's Peetambara Peeth, a seat of tantric learning dedicated to Baglamukhi. Both Mahakaal and Peetambara Peeth are frequented by large number of politicians cutting across party lines.

Later, Kamal Nath also visited Shankaracharya Swaroopanand Saraswati of Dwarka at his ashram in Narsinghpur. Lately, Congress leaders are being increasingly seen at temples and other centres associated with spirituality.

Kamal Nath’s party colleague and former Union minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia followed suit and went on a temple yatra soon after Nath. He visited major temples of the stateapart from meeting various religious leaders and seers. Recently, he was spotted at the Shankaracharya’s ashram where he had gone for darshan.

As the election dates are approaching, political leaders are going out of their way to visit temples and ashrams to seek the benedictions of swamis and mahants. Not only Congress, BJP too is busy with temple visits. The frequency of these visits is likely to increase in the run-up to polls, given the influence wielded by these religious leaders.

BJP National President Amit Shah recently visited the Mahakaal Mandir in Ujjain to flag off Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s Ashirvaad Yatra to visit all 230 constituencies of the state, in a run-up to the assembly election. He has done the same in earlier assembly elections as well.

Moreover, in March, Chouhan had rushed to placate five mahants by granting them the status of minister of state, after they threatened to launch a yatra alleging corruption in the government’s plan to plant saplings along the Narmada River. The religious leaders called off their campaign following Chouhan’s offer.

Excited with the Gujarat and Karnataka assembly election results, Congress is leaving no stone unturned to win the upcoming assembly elections. On June 6, during the first anniversary of Mandsaur farmer protest, where six farmers were killed in police firing, Rahul Gandhi placed his card and promised a farmer loan waiver within 10 days of forming the government in Madhya Pradesh.

Congress is out of power in the state for 15 years now and the party is trying to put up a strong challenge to the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government in the state. However, these temple visits might shackle the pro-Muslim image of the party.