If needed, Rahul Gandhi will declare chief ministerial candidate in MP: Kamal Nath

New Delhi: Newly-appointed Congress President in Madhya Pradesh Kamal Nath says that it is not a practice in his party to declare a chief ministerial candidate in a poll-bound state Rahul Gandhi will do so in the state, if the need is felt.

He also says that the people in Madhya Pradesh are angry with the "thuggery" of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government and the Congress is much better organised to defeat it in the assembly polls to be held later this year.

"Well, there is no doubt the time is short. But I am confident that we will be able to strengthen the party at the village level. This is a contest against the BJP's organisational strength and their money power," he said in an interview with IANS.

Kamal Nath, 71, who is MP from Chhindwara and has been elected to the Lok Sabha nine times, said that the decision about changes in the state unit should have been made "much earlier" in view of the coming elections but he was not going to look back and think why the decision was not made.

The former union minister, who was appointed Madhya Pradesh Congress chief on April 26, said he has no faction, has good relations with all leaders and does not have to strive to bring about factional unity. /Kamal Nath appeared to be keeping open the option of contestng the Assembly polls. "I have been fighting for 40 years. I am the longest serving MP." Asked if party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia will contest, he said, "I don't know".

Asked about the party not declaring a chief ministerial candidate and if the appointment of Scindia as head of the Campaign Committee was a balancing act, he said: "Madhya Pradesh is a complex state and no one face can win you the election. You need several faces. And that's what has been done."

Asked if he would have liked the party to have declared a CM candidate, he said that the strategy varies from state to state.

"It is sometimes necessary, sometimes not necessary. Who did BJP have as a chief ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh? Who did they have their CM candidate in Uttarakhand. They never had a chief ministerial candidate. So, it depends," he said.