In a setback to Congress veteran Kamal Nath, seven corporators of his party from the Chhindwara Municipal Corporation in Madhya Pradesh have joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. The corporators, along with their supporters, joined the BJP at the residence of State Urban Development Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya in Bhopal on March 5. They raised the slogan “Phir ek baar Modi Sarkar” (Modi Government once again). The corporators cited Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development works as their reason for joining the BJP. Chhindwara is considered the stronghold of Kamal Nath, who is currently the Congress MLA from the region. This development comes at a time when the ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’ led by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi is passing through Madhya Pradesh. The seven corporators who joined the BJP are Roshni Sallam, Leena Tirkam, Santoshi Vadiwar, Deepa Mohre, Jagdish Godre, Chandrabhan Thakre, and Dhanraj Bhavarkar. There has been speculation about the future moves of Kamal Nath and his son Nakul Nath, who is the Lok Sabha member from Chhindwara, but they have both stated that they do not intend to switch to the BJP. In the 2019 general elections, out of the 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP won 28, while the Congress managed to win only the Chhindwara seat. Kamal Nath has represented the Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat nine times.