Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Jitu Patwari has said his senior colleague Kamal Nath told him he was not going anywhere and would remain in the party.
Speculation has been rife for the past few days that Nath and his Lok Sabha MP son Nakul Nath are on their way to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
"The BJP misuses the media and questions the integrity of a person. I had a talk with Kamal Nath ji who told me that the reports floating in the media were part of a conspiracy. He told me he was a Congressman and will remain in the Congress," Patwari told PTI on Sunday evening.
"His relationship with the Gandhi family is unshakable. He has lived with the ideology of Congress and will remain with it till the end. This is what he told me," the Congress leader said.
Asked why Nath was not putting forth his side, Patwari said the former chief minister would speak at the right time. "What I said was on his behalf," he claimed.
Nath and his son and Chhindwara MP Nakul Nath arrived in the national capital on Saturday afternoon. Nakul Nath has dropped Congress from his bio on social media. Around half a dozen Madhya Pradesh MLAs loyal to Kamal Nath reached Delhi on Sunday, accentuating the speculation that the father-son duo was set to join the ruling BJP.
In Bhopal, Nath's party colleague Digvijaya Singh expressed confidence his old friend would not forsake the party from where he began his political journey.
Meanwhile, in Delhi, Congress leader Sajjan Singh Verma, known to be close to Kamal Nath, met the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister.
"I had a discussion with him. He was sitting with a chart on how Lok Sabha tickets will be distributed and what will be the caste equations. He (Nath) said 'My focus is to figure out what the caste equations will be on 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh'. He said he has not thought about anything like that (of leaving the party) and neither has he spoken on it with anyone," Verma said after meeting Nath.
"When I said media is are saying you did not deny it (speculation), he (Nath) said media raised it and it should answer," Verma said.
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