Union commerce minister Kamal Nath did not say it explicitly – no Congress leader does it – but he made it sufficiently clear by his actions and utterances that he is in the race for chief ministership of Madhya Pradesh. It was after many, many years that he descended on Bhopal nearly 12 hours ahead of the announced schedule, made social calls, met the groups of party activists, addressed the party forums and interacted with the media. He almost repeated the performance at Indore the next day.

To the volley of questions about the next chief minister of the Congress, his stock reply was what the other State Congress leaders have been parroting: it is not the Congress tradition to project the chief minister.

Kamal Nath's entry into the leadership contest has obviously cast a cloud over    the enthusiasm of the other three contenders: Suresh Pachauri, who had taken it for granted that he would be the next Congress chief minister when he was shifted from the Union Council of Ministers to become the PCC chief, the presumption being that he has Kamal Nath's backing; Ajay Singh was banking upon the clout and goodwill of his father and Union HRD minister Arjun Singh, his hopes having been rekindled when he was named chairman of the State Election Committee simultaneously with Pachauri's nomination as PCC chief.

 
Then there is Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Jamuna Devi, who was hoping that her relentless fight against the "corrupt" BJP government in the last four years made her a natural choice for the next Congress chief minister, her additional qualifications being that she is a tribal leader with her legislative experience spanning over nearly six decades. Her case was strengthened, at least her supporters felt, when State Mahila Congress president Shobha Ojha publicly declared that if the Congress wins in the November Assembly elections – of which she has no doubt that it will win --- the party should go for a woman chief minister and that can only be Jamuna Devi.

But Kamal Nath, too, had to face a little mortification. One of his programmes in Bhopal was to address a conference of Congress representatives in the civic bodies in the State. The representatives from the Gwalior region made a forceful plea, and they were supported by those belonging to the Arjun Singh and Digvijay Singh camps, that if Jyotiraditya Scindia was declared as the next chief minister and made the star campaigner in the election campaign, there was no doubt that the Congress would trounce the BJP in the November elections.  Kamal Nath, as the chief guest, could not but assure the conference that he would apprise the party high command of their sentiments.

The Congress has thus five aspirants for the post of the chief minister, though it is yet to formulate a strategy to win the November elections. Scindia has for quite some time been undertaking frequent tours of the State and trying to dispel the perception that he is the leader of only the Gwalior region. He is youthful, without a blemished past and inspires confidence.