Datia bypoll: Congress leader Nayak meets BJP candidate Ashutosh Tiwari

The Datia Assembly by-election has been jolted by a potentially game-changing development, with disgruntled Congress leader Avdhesh Nayak — who was conspicuously absent from his own party candidate’s nomination filing — holding a meeting with BJP candidate Ashutosh Tiwari, fuelling intense speculation that the former Congress ticket claimant may be on the verge of switching allegiance ahead of the July 30 vote.

The meeting between Nayak and Tiwari, which has been confirmed through multiple political sources, has sent tremors through both party camps in the constituency. Photographs and accounts of the encounter between the two leaders have been circulating widely on social media, with political observers interpreting the rendezvous as a signal that Nayak’s disenchantment with the Congress has crossed the point of reconciliation.

Nayak’s resentment has been simmering since the party’s ticket distribution. He had staked a strong claim to the Congress nomination for the Datia by-election, arguing that his sacrifice in 2023 — when the party had initially declared him as its candidate before replacing him with Rajendra Bharti following factional pressure — entitled him to the ticket this time. However, the Congress leadership once again overlooked his candidature, a decision that appears to have pushed him to the breaking point.

Following the ticket announcement, State Congress president Jitu Patwari had described the selection as a “social decision.” However, this characterisation reportedly deepened Nayak’s sense of grievance. Adding insult to injury, his name was omitted from the party’s list of star campaigners for the Datia by-election — a pointed exclusion that has been widely interpreted as a deliberate marginalisation of a leader who had expected to be the party’s face in the constituency.

Nayak’s absence from the Congress candidate’s nomination proceedings was the most visible manifestation of the rift. In a constituency where every public gesture carries electoral weight, his decision to stay away from what should have been a show of party unity has been read as an unambiguous declaration of dissent.

The development has injected a volatile new variable into the Datia contest. Nayak commands significant influence among OBC voters, particularly within the Nayak-Kachhi community, and any formal or informal alignment with the BJP could substantially redraw the constituency’s caste arithmetic — which was already finely balanced, with Congress having won the seat by a margin of just 7,742 votes in 2023.

The BJP, for its part, appears to be actively cultivating the disaffected Congress leader. The meeting with candidate Tiwari is being viewed not as a casual social encounter but as a calculated political outreach aimed at either securing Nayak’s formal defection or, at the very minimum, ensuring his passive non-cooperation with the Congress campaign — either outcome serving the BJP’s electoral interests.

Congress leaders in the district have attempted to downplay the significance of the meeting, maintaining that Nayak remains a party member and that internal differences will be resolved through dialogue. However, senior functionaries privately concede that the damage may already be irreparable, with Nayak’s public signals leaving little room for ambiguity about his intentions.