Madhya Pradesh Chief-Minister Kamal Nath, who took over on Monday after the Congress rode to victory in the recently concluded Assembly polls, has courted controversy on his very second day in office by lamenting that ‘outsiders’ from States such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were taking up jobs thus depriving locals of their due job opportunities.

Soon after taking over, Nath told newsmen that his priority would be to give incentives to industries where 70% of the workforce comprises locals. “I’m aware that people from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh move to Madhya Pradesh for getting employment, thus affecting the local populace,” he added.

Ironically, Kamal Nath’s statement irked not only the BJP in the State and elsewhere but also Uttar Pradesh chief-minister Akhilesh Yadav, whose Samajwadi Party is an ally of the Congress. Yadav criticized Nath’s statement and said Maharashtra too has said this from time to time. “Why do North Indians come here (UP)? We have people from Delhi and MP but we aren’t complaining,” he tweeted.

BJP MP from Madhya Pradesh and Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar took at the newly-elected chief-minister stating that it was ironical that the senior politician was completely ignorant about existing laws which prioritized for the native population in almost all the States.

BJP’s all-India general secretary Kailash Vijaywargiya concurred with the views of his party colleague and accused the MP chief-minister of promoting ‘divisive politics’ which was contrary to the oath he had taken on Monday. “If the ‘outsider’ logic is applied in politics too, how the Kanpur-born Nath could have become the chief-minister in Madhya Pradesh?” he wondered.