Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and Congress Rajya Sabha member Digvijaya Singh will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from his pocket borough of Rajgarh. His name was announced late on Saturday in the party’s fresh list of candidates, which included 11 more names for Madhya Pradesh.
Mr. Singh, however, confirmed his candidature hours before the party made the official announcement as he responded to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav’s comments on the speculations of the Congress veteran being fielded from his bastion.
Speaking to reporters in Rajgarh, Mr. Singh, 77, said, “I am ready to even contest against [Prime Minister] Narendra Modi or [former M.P. CM] Shivraj Singh Chouhan. But the party has asked me to contest from here [Rajgarh], so I will fight from here.”
Mr. Yadav, who claimed that many Congress leaders were “running towards their safe turfs”, including Mr. Singh, who was also returning to his home turf instead of the Bhopal constituency from where he had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
‘Senior Congressmen unwilling to contest’
“The Congress is not able to find candidates. In this scenario, someone is going to his home turf after 30 years. Why doesn’t he come back to contest from Bhopal again? You were the State’s CM of 10 years. Come. Who is stopping you?” Mr. Yadav said, claiming that the Congress has been unable to declare all its candidates as its senior leaders were either unwilling to enter the poll fray or were “running” to safe seats.
Earlier this week, Mr. Singh had said that the Congress leadership had “indicated” to him that he may be fielded from Rajgarh. However, he had earlier expressed his wish to not contest the upcoming Lok Sabha election as he was already a member of the Rajya Sabha.
Apart from Mr. Singh, the Congress has fielded senior leader and former union minister Kantilal Bhuria from Ratlam, youth leader Akshay Bam from Indore, former Bhopal Rural district Congress president Arun Shrivastav.
With the latest 12 candidates, the Congress has now officially announced 22 names. The Opposition party is yet to release six more names and its INDIA bloc partner Samajwadi Party (SP) will field its candidate on Khajuraho seat as part of the seat sharing arrangement.
The remaining six constituencies also include high-profile Guna where Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia is the BJP’s candidate.
Among the probable, as per sources, is also former PCC chief Arun Yadav who has publicly expressed his wish to contest against Mr. Scindia. The Congress is also in touch with the sitting BJP MP K.P. Yadav, who was denied the ticket by the ruling party this time, an insider in State Congress said.
Long history in Rajgarh
Mr. Singh, who hails from the erstwhile royal family of Rajgarh, will be up against BJP candidate and two-term sitting MP Rodmal Nagar.
The Congress veteran had become the MP from Rajgarh for the first time in 1984. He had, however, lost it to the BJP’s Pyarelal Khandelwal in 1989 before wresting the seat back from him in 1991. Mr. Singh vacated the seat in 1993 after he was chosen by the Congress as the State’s CM.
His brother Lakshman Singh then won Rajgarh in a 1994 bylection and held it until 2009, albeit with a twist: he joined the BJP in 2003 and won the seat on its ticket in 2004. In 2009, Mr. Lakshman Singh was defeated by the Congress’ Narayan Singh Amlabe and then returned to the Congress in 2013.
