Less than four months after BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi mockingly said that if Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh were a Congress leader his son Abhishek Singh would have got an Assembly poll ticket, the saffron party has fielded the 34-year-old from the Rajnandgaon Lok Sabha seat.
An MBA from Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur, Abhishek was on Tuesday given the BJP ticket by replacing sitting MP Madhusudan Yadav, who defeated his Congress rival by a margin of 1.19 lakh votes in the 2009 elections.
It was in last November, while addressing a rally at Kawarda in the state, that Modi launched a scathing attack on the Congress for promoting dynasty politics.
According to state BJP leaders, Abhishek’s candidature was always a foregone conclusion.
“Initially, some associates of Raman Singh wanted Abhishek to contest the Assembly elections but Raman Singh was of the view that he should be moved to Delhi to assume a much larger role. If the BJP forms the government at the Centre, Raman Singh’s equation with Modi will make sure that Abhishek is made a member of the Cabinet,” a party leader said.
In the 2013, Raman helped Congress treasurer Motilal Vora’s son Arun Vora so that he wouldn’t lose the Assembly elections from the BJP stronghold of Durg. It may also be recalled that Arun had lost three consecutive elections before 2013.
Apparently to return the favour to Raman, Motilal has ensured that the Congress candidate in Rajnandgaon is relatively weak. And Congress workers are up in arms against Kamleshwar Verma’s candidature.
“Abhishek will have no problem winning the seat. Apart from the fact that he is Raman Singh’s son, our candidate is very weak. The only question is about the victory margin,” a Congress leader said.