BHOPAL: A day after Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s roadshow in Madhya Pradesh, party veteran Digvijaya Singh was miffed with an online campaign projecting him as the next chief minister of the poll-bound state.
“Whoever has started Digvijay4CM is not my well-wisher. I have been CM MP for a decade and there is no question of my going back on my statement that I AM NOT A CM CANDIDATE. I am not someone who would say something and do something else (sic),” Singh tweeted.
The Congress veteran had clarified the issue earlier also when he embarked on a state-wide political yatra which followed his Narmada Parikrama Yatra that ended in April. The gruelling six-month yatra had generated a strong buzz which Singh’s detractors saw as an assertion of his authority and his growing political ambition.
Interestingly, while Rahul had been in favour of naming Jyotiraditya Scindia as the state unit chief, Singh batted for veteran Kamal Nath.
Later, trying to keep a balance, Rahul refrained from naming Scindia as the chief ministerial nominee and only appointed him the head of the campaign committee. Singh was asked by the AICC to coordinate the state unit and use his influence to mobilise voters.
Singh kept losing the charge of states like Karnataka, Goa and Telangana, was not included in the revamped Congress Working Committee and the 9-member core committee set up by Rahul to oversee the Lok Sabha polls.
Party insiders said Singh’s silence amidst an online campaign could have indicated that he was nurturing chief ministerial ambitions and was hard to ignore.
“He is playing it safe,” a senior leader said, adding that the online campaign might be the handiwork of Singh’s detractors, or in the BJP camp.