No rift in party, will defeat BJP: Kantilal Bhuria, Congress leader

Kantilal Bhuria, tribal affairs minister in the erstwhile UPA government, told Dalip Singh in an interview at his residence in Jhabua that he will win the seventh Lok Sabha election he is contesting – from Ratlam (formerly Jhabua), which is reserved for Scheduled Tribes – owing to the development work done by him and his party in the constituency. Perhaps the longest serving Congress parliamentarian after Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath, the five-term MP said the “Modi factor” that led to his only defeat so far had gone bust and dismissed the electoral threat from the BJP’s GS Damor, who had defeated Bhuria’s son in the November 2018 assembly election. Excerpts:

What do you think about your prospects in this election?
I am grateful to the party high command that it continues to repose faith in a karyakarta (worker) like me. I have been working for the development of Jhabua and Ratlam. I have got railway line, national highway and we have connected villages and got schools and higher education institutions… All this is because of Congress. Contrast this with the Shivraj Singh government’s performance. His own minister went to jail in a corruption case and there is little to talk about the Modi government.
Are you facing anti-incumbency because of your long stint as MP? Your son lost the assembly polls…
That was a ploy of the BJP… they engineered a rift in the party. Otherwise, the BJP cannot open their account in this place. Because of one independent candidate the party lost one… Joel Meena is now back with us… We will teach a lesson to the BJP. I have worked here. BJP is trying to spread misinformation about me.

So far you have lost just once, in 2014…
In 2014, Modi came to power peddling lies. A year after, I won in the by-election. The entire central and state machinery of MP and Gujarat was deployed here in the election. They also spent around Rs 100-150 crore in the election but I won with the margin of around one lakh votes.

How prominent is the Modi factor now?
The Modi factor has gone bust. He initially sold the dream of “achche din (good days)” which never came. He said he will bring back black money into the country. That did not happen.

Through lies he occupied the PM’s post.