In what is considered by many as an implicit acknowledgement of serious turf war within Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee, Union Power Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia expressed hope that partymen will be able to put their heads together and give a clear message to the people in the State ahead of the Assembly polls in November.
Scindia, a front runner for the Chief Minister's post, alleged there had been no development in the State under the BJP rule. He urged party workers to work together and "present the facts" more aggressively.
"We don't just have to put the (negative) facts about the present government before the people, but also point to them what we need to do and what we will do, something that needs to be crafted by putting our heads together, in the next two months," the Guna parliamentarian said.
Notably, deep factionalism has hit the MPCC for the last one decade. The infighting has been sharp and frequent, sometimes even at public platforms. Observes consider this as MPCC's Achilles heel that could subvert any chances of coming to power here.
Party insiders hesitatingly point out that there are four major factions in MPCC, led by Scindia, Digvijay Singh, Pachouri and Kamal Nath. Besides, there is Ajay Singh, leader of Opposition in the State Assembly who is son of party veteran late Arjun Singh with significant sway in parts of the State.
Scindia recently became part of the Congress' communications and publicity committee headed by Digvijay Singh. "We have now set up a dedicated group which is giving us daily review of what's happening on the net while we are in the process of updating websites, twitter and other social media platforms to engage with the people across all age group," he said, rejecting the view of critics that the party is playing a "catch up" game with the BJP on the social media platform.
"I don't think so. But as a political party, our job is to reach out to all, using all vehicles and social media has now emerged as a very important one. But it can't be an end in itself, it can only be the means to an end," he said.