Like all fiefdoms, this Congress borough too is gradually succumbing to the great equaliser of democracy where none are special.

In line with the perceived neglect that other Congress boroughs like Amethi and Rae Bareli have faced from unfriendly governments, many in Kamal Nath’s fortress in the Satpuras blame the BJP for shifting down the gears of development in this seat.

Nath’s son Nakul — also the local MP — is entirely handling his father’s campaign here while Nath senior campaigns in the rest of Madhya Pradesh. Even a decade after he started appearing beside his father in public events, many voters haven’t warmed up to Nakul the way they have to his father.

Kamal Nath’s famed razor to cut through red tape appears to have been blunted without the whetting stones of power at the Centre or in the state.

Occasional visitors to Chhindwara miss the feeling of relief when one drives across the district boundary from Seoni to Chhindwara on National Highway 347. Gone are the days when the road would magically transform from a lower-back punisher to the kind of highway that Lalu Prasad had once controversially compared to Hema Malini’s cheeks.

Congress graffiti in Chhindwara district’s Gadarwada village asking voters to make Kamal Nath the chief minister. Pheroze L Vincent

“It’s now One Nation One Road,” a local cop quipped when asked about this democratic levelling of Nath’s “Chhindwara model”.

“We are not special anymore,” Deepak Kumar, a chauffeur, told this newspaper. “When one stretch of the road is repaired, work on another section starts. You can’t say that work is not happening. It’s just happening at the pace that it happens anywhere else.”

“Our man deserves a full term as CM at least once,” says farmer Golu Pawar of the neighbouring Assembly seat of Saunsar — a segment of the Chhindwara parliamentary constituency. All its seven segments are held by the Congress.

The Lok Sabha seat has elected MPs from the Nath family continuously from 1980, except in 1997 when former BJP chief minister Sunder Lal Patwa trounced Kamal Nath in a bypoll.

Pawar is no Congress man. He reels off a litany of welfare schemes of the BJP government, but adds that when it comes to Chhindwara, there is none like Nath — not even Nakul.

“If I had a father who has achieved so much, even I would not bother much about political work. I think his son has so many businesses that even he may not be aware of all he owns,” Pawar told The Telegraph.

The common grouse of youths such as Pawar is that a slew of projects like the Raja Shankar Shah University, Chhindwara Institute of Medical Sciences (CIMS) and the College of Horticulture initiated during Nath’s short term as chief minister in 2018-19 are incomplete or inadequate.

Sipping tea opposite the municipal air strip — which Nath had attempted to upgrade into an airport — MNC employee Kshitij Bhumarkar, now working from home here, rued that Chhindwara youths are still forced to migrate for education and work.

“We’re at the crossroads of (the rail heads of) Itarsi, Jabalpur and Nagpur. In Madhya Pradesh, the only metros are Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur. We could have been the fourth. But the city has been left behind after Kamal Nath’s year as chief minister.

“For people here, this election is a retaliation vote against the politics that has stopped work on everything that was started by him,” he told this newspaper.

Bhumarkar repeated the prevailing perception about his MP: “Kamal Nath interacts with people, has a national stature. Nakul, not so much. He is low on energy and can’t fit into his dad’s shoes.”

“Nakul is still learning this game. But Kamal Nath will win anyway,” said computer technician Bhavesh Malvi. “Par mahaul bahut kharab ho gaya hai (The ambience has become foul),” he added, pointing at a newspaper report of state BJP chief V.D. Sharma condemning Nath for taking down hoardings of Lord Ram and calling the Congress a “Babar-loving party.”

The Congress had complained to the Election Commission about the BJP using images of the under-construction Ayodhya temple on its posters.

Nath has bent over backwards to prove his Hindu credentials. He has even publicised his devotion to controversial godman Dhirendra Shastri — who called for the establishment of a Hindu nation. Nath also claimed credit for the Congress for opening the locks of the Babri Masjid under the Rajiv Gandhi government that set off a chain of events culminating in its demolition and eventual transformation into a Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The Calcutta-bred leader is playing to the gallery of voters like Dwarka Prasad Mahure of Imlikheda. Mahure owns several shops, and is miffed about the economic downturn in the market where more and more graduates are ending up as hawkers. For this, he blames the BJP, but…

“Muslim hote hee hain atyachari (Muslim are basically oppressors). The Congress tacitly supports them. You will never hear Congress men speak against Muslims or Christians, while their allies are trying to destroy Sanatan Dharma which is our religion,” Mahure said.

Most traders huddled around him nodded in approval. A few also disapproved feebly.

“Kamal Nath is very efficient although his son is like Rahul Gandhi. He doesn’t know what to say on stage,” added Mahure.

Nath junior has repeated in speeches that religion has no place in politics. Congress campaign vans play classic patriotic songs like Mere Desh ki Dharti that extols fraternity among Indians. He has repeated Rahul’s pitch that the Congress will open a Mohabbat ki Dukaan (shop of love).

Restaurateur Syed Aqeel Ali loves both Naths, warts and all.

“Who brought communalism in politics? The BJP did. Kamal Nath is only responding to them. Nakul may not be an expert at captivating the crowds like his father, but his heart is good. Kamal Nath’s use of religion doesn’t bother me.

“My problem is that I have to go to the district hospital instead of CIMS because the latter doesn’t have the necessary equipment yet. The former has become a murgi bazaar (overcrowded like a poultry market) and doctors hardly are found on duty. If the Congress was in power, no one would have dared to do this to Chhindwara,” he said before slipping into narrating the delightful myths that old-timers here love to recount.

These include the ability of Nath to hypnotise rival party cadres into quietly switching sides before polls, or his influence in getting a disproportionately high share of railway rakes here during the orange harvest — at the expense of the mines that need the rakes to move coal to power plants.

Myths require a semblance of truth, as patronage requires the patron to have power. Nath faces the BJP’s district president, Vivek Bunty Sahu, whom he defeated last time. Madhya Pradesh votes on November 17.