BHOPAL: At a time when the opposition Congress is reportedly toying with the idea of fielding senior leaders in the coming Lok Sabha polls in Madhya Pradesh, former CM and current Rajya Sabha member Digvijaya Singh has made it clear that he isn’t keen at contesting the LS polls.
“There is no question of me contesting the Lok Sabha polls, as I still have more than two years left as a Rajya Sabha member,” Singh told journalists in Rajgarh district.
Importantly, leaving behind the Congress’s dismal show in the November 2023 assembly polls in MP, Singh is now working at rebuilding the party organization for the Lok Sabha polls in the Rajgarh parliamentary constituency – a seat he won in 1984 and 1991.
The same seat was represented by his younger brother Lakshman Singh five times between 1994 and 2004, including as BJP candidate in 2004.
There has been a strong buzz in the state Congress circles about the septuagenarian former CM being a frontrunner for the Congress ticket from Rajgarh and Bhopal Lok Sabha seats.
The eight assembly segments-strong Rajgarh LS seat which is spread in three districts – Guna, Rajgarh and Agar-Malwa – includes Singh family’s pocket-borough Raghogarh (which was won for the third time by his ex-minister son Jaivardhan Singh in recent assembly polls), the Chachoura seat (which was lost by his sitting MLA brother Lakshman Singh) and the Khilchipur seat (which was lost by his sitting MLA distant nephew Priyavardhan Singh in the 2023 assembly polls). Out of the eight assembly segments of the Rajgarh LS seat, only two were won by the Congress in the recent state elections.
Importantly, Singh had ended his self-imposed exile from poll politics after 16 years in the 2019 LS polls, when he was fielded by the Congress against BJP candidate Pragya Thakur from the Bhopal seat. He had, however, lost the Bhopal seat to Thakur by a massive 3.64 lakh vote margin.
Importantly, the state Congress leadership is reportedly toying with the idea of recommending the party’s top brass to field senior leaders in the coming LS polls in MP, particularly after the recent assembly polls debacle.
Those senior leaders on whom the state party is planning to bank as candidates include ex CM Kamal Nath, ex-state Congress chiefs and former union ministers Arun Yadav and Kantilal Bhuria, Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tankha, former leader of opposition Dr Govind Singh, current MLA Ajay Singh ‘Rahul,’ former deputy speaker of Vidhan Sabha Hina Kanware and current state party chief Jitu Patwari.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, despite being in power in the state, the Congress had managed to win just one out of the 29 LS seats in MP, with the then CM Kamal Nath’s son Nakul Nath emerging victorious from his father’s pocket borough Chhindwara.
The notable Congress losers in the 2019 LS polls, included Digvijaya Singh (Bhopal), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Ramniwas Rawat (Morena), Ajay Singh ‘Rahul’ (Sidhi), Kantilal Bhuria (Ratlam-ST), Vivek Tankha (Jabalpur), Meenakshi Natrajan (Mandsaur) and Arun Yadav (Khandwa-Burhanpur).