BHOPAL: With over five decades of political experience under his belt, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh is on a mission to rebuild the Congress in the Gwalior-Chambal region of the state. The region Home turf of Jyotiraditya Scindia, whose departure from the Congress scripted the fall of 15-month-old Kamal Nath government in March 2020 had played a key role in the Congress’s return to power in the state after 15 years in the 2018 Assembly polls. Powered by Scindia’s charisma, the party had won 26 out of 34 seats in the region.
But with Scindia now in the BJP camp and several senior BJP leaders, including Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar, state BJP president VD Sharma and state’s home minister Narottam Mishra hailing from the same region, the Congress faces an uphill task of recreating the 2018 magic in the upcoming poll.
Digvijaya chaired a marathon six-hour meeting of region’s Congress leaders in Gwalior on Saturday. The meeting was attended among others by newly appointed Leader of Opposition in the Vidhan Sabha Dr Govind Singh, powerful Brahmin leader Chaudhary Rakesh Singh Chaturvedi, former minister Ramniwas Rawat and many MLAs, including Digvijaya’s son and former MP minister Jaivardhan Singh.
“Our senior leaders will carry out Yatras across the region under the door-to-door Ghar Chalo Abhiyan. During these Yatras the failure of BJP regimes at the Centre and the state to control the galloping inflation and the ruling party’s tactics of diverting attention from real issues to communal issues will be exposed,” the Rajya Sabha MP said.
The former CM, who has also been appointed by Nath as the head of a Congress panel probing the “suppressive” actions by the BJP government against Congress workers and leaders in MP, said the first mega rally on the issue will be held soon in the Gwalior-Chambal region.