The mood in the party about the key BJP-ruled state has changed after candidate selection, puncturing the positivity that emanated from the first joint rally that kick-started the state campaign and continued for a few more shows of strength.
Insiders said the ticket distribution was not just acrimonious but also bitter with a senior leader even threatening to withdraw from the state campaign after one of his loyalists was denied ticket from what he considers his fief.
A party manager confided that no leader was willing to put his faith in the central leadership that was deciding the nominations and meetings of the screening committee and the huddles that followed were nasty.
He said leaders did not reflect the conciliatory mood that was expected after the leadership hammered out unity in the divided state unit.
"The ticket distribution has clearly neutralized the bonhomie. It was not a pleasant exercise as we had hoped," sources said.
While haggling and one-upmanship is par for the course in the process to clinch nominations, Congress leaders are aghast at what they witnessed after their hopes were raised by the early show of unity. A confident Congress handed the reins of the state's campaign committee to Jyotiraditya Scindia while many others were accommodated as heads of poll-related panels without any hitch.
"The cracks developed during ticket distribution are likely to linger and fester," an apprehensive leader said.
The fears over unity come amid ostensibly determined Congress efforts to unseat the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government that the opinion polls are backing for a renewed term.
Congress had drafted new guidelines for selection of candidates which proved a hurdle in the traditional "quota system" by which the preferences of senior leaders are accepted in their fiefs.
The instances of dissent, like irate workers locking up MP Meenakshi Natarajan and suicide by another dejected aspirant, are minor when compared to the anger that has prevailed among senior leaders over selection of candidates.
The MP Congress is divided among AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh, Union ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamal Nath, and state unit president Kantilal Bhuria.
Sources said each of them had sought tickets for their loyalists while Digvijay and Bhuria had even sought nominations for their kin. That became a sticking point in the case of Bhuria and the latter spent most of his time lobbying.
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