BHOPAL: Constantly under attack from BJP leaders over the years, Congress veteran leader Digvijaya Singh is surprisingly getting thumbs up from the ruling party’s leaders, but has earned the wrath of his own party’s leaders in Madhya Pradesh over a corruption row in the State.
His recent utterances have been contrary to the accusations being made by the state Congress president, Jitu Patwari, over alleged corruption by the state government in allotting Rs 500 crore worth of land in Ujjain to a trust.
The septuagenarian, also a former CM, is receiving appreciation of sorts from BJP leaders, including multiple-times MLA Rameshwar Sharma, state media head Ashish Usha Agrawal and state spokesperson Dr Hitesh Bajpai.
His repeated public utterances over the issue, which contradict Patwari’s allegations, have triggered chaos among multiple state Congress leaders, including present and former MLAs and ministers.
On June 24, state Congress chief Jitu Patwari, along with the chairman of the party’s media department, Pawan Khera, addressed a press conference in Delhi, in the wake of a national daily’s investigation on land purchases by chief minister Dr Mohan Yadav and real estate firms in Ujjain.
Additionally, Patwari asked, “In Ujjain, government land worth Rs 500 crore was given to a trust named 'Veer Bharat Nyas' for a token amount of just Rs 1. Its trustee is Shriram Tiwari, who is the Chief Minister's cultural advisor. On what basis was such expensive land given to this trust?”
A couple of days later, former CM and former Congress MP Digvijaya Singh spoke to journalists in Ujjain on the same issue and stated, “It is being alleged that land worth Rs 500 crore has been rendered to a private trust for Rs 1 only. But I’ve all the relevant papers with me, which establish that the concerned land hasn’t been given to any private trust; instead, the concerned trust is a government trust."
"I don’t speak on any issue without proper research; the papers related to trust clearly reveal that the concerned trust is a government trust, whose ex officio chairman is the state’s CM. There isn't a dearth of dalals (brokers) who make false accusations and then earn money,” he added.
While the state Congress Jitu Patwari stuck to his allegations, there was resentment among the state Congress’s ranks over Singh’s statements that were seen as a “rebuttal of sorts” of the state party’s chief allegations.
The Congress veteran repeated the same statement on the issue before journalists in Barwani district on Monday.
He, however, added that what the state Congress chief alleged on June 24 was actually based on information given by a BJP MLA and news published in a local newspaper.
“The same information was also given to me by the BJP MLA, who is not on good terms with CM Dr Mohan Yadav. But when I researched the entire issue, I found that the trust in question was actually a government trust,” he added.
Singh’s repeated statements, which differed from the allegations made by the state Congress chief on the same issue, rendered the ruling BJP leaders ammo to attack MP Congress chief Jitu Patwari.
“The lifespan of a lie isn't very long! The malicious campaign that Congress President Jitu Patwari was trying to pass off as truth has been deflated by Congress senior leader and former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh himself,” state BJP’s media in-charge Ashish Usha Agrawal posted on X.
State BJP spokesperson Dr Hitesh Bajpai and Huzur seat MLA Rameshwar Sharma, who have in the past often targeted Singh on various issues, complimented him for “showing the mirror” to his own party leaders, like Jitu Patwari, who were making false allegations.
On the other hand, many leaders of the state Congress started voicing their concern within the party circles over Singh’s utterances having damaged the party's image publicly on the issue raised by the state party chief.
The opposition to Singh’s public utterances within his own party became more visible on Tuesday, when present Congress MLA Arif Masood and former legislator Praveen Pathak reportedly raised the issue at the state party’s political affairs committee (PAC) meeting at the MP Congress HQ in Bhopal.
A few leaders felt that instead of publicly making statements that contradict the state party chief’s stand, the former CM should have raised it on the party’s internal forum only.
State Congress’s general secretary Nidhi Chaturvedi (daughter of former Congress MP Satyavrat Chaturvedi) slammed the former CM through a long social media post. In the post, Chaturvedi asked, “When will Congress get free from Naagpash of Digvijaya Singh?”
As the issue caused embarrassment to the Congress in the state, both the leaders, state party chief Jitu Patwari and ex-CM Digvijaya Singh, talked jointly to journalists on Tuesday evening.
“The entire Congress party in MP is united in the fight against corruption in the Dr Mohan Yadav government. All complaints related to land deals by the state’s CM and his family are being probed at our level. We all will unitedly fight a definite battle on the issue,” Singh and Patwari told journalists.
“Confusion is being spread about differences between state party chief Jitu Patwari and me. He (Patwari) is like my son. I’ve spent more than half a century in the Congress party; I can never use the word Dalal for any leader of the party, including the state party chief. I used the word Dalal for a journalist, whose name is Bhupendra Dalal,” Singh said.