BENGALURU: Senior Congress leader and party Rajya Sabha candidate from Madhya Pradesh Digvijaya Singh landed in Bengaluru on Wednesday and made an attempt to meet rebel Congress MLAs lodged in a resort. Even as the police refused him entry saying the MLAs had written to them seeking security, Singh insisted that more than half-a-dozen of those lawmakers want to be “freed”. In an interview to The New Indian Express, he expressed confidence that he would be elected to the Rajya Sabha. Excerpts:
Your MLAs have been in B’luru for more than two weeks. What prompted you to meet them now?
All efforts were being made by the party leadership in the state to convince them. Their families were approached, but the MLAs were under some kind of influence. They are in an environment from where they are unable to come out. We got the message that some of them wanted us to come here and meet them. We were told that they were prepared to return. That’s what brought me here.
You claim the rebel MLAs reached out to you. How many of them did?
Yes, they spoke to me. I spoke to about four of them and they promised me that seven of them wanted to come out, but were not being allowed. The numbers I contacted on Tuesday are not reachable on Wednesday.
Is this an attempt to woo them back despite their public allegiance to (Jyotiraditya) Scindia or simply shame them for deserting the party?
We want to win them back. They are our boys, our people. My whole effort is to win them back.
Do you believe you could have done things differently in the last 15 months that could have avoided this situation?
That is difficult to say. After all, there is something more than meets the eye. It is not any grievance against the Chief Minister. It is something beyond that.
Are you confident of being elected to the Rajya Sabha?
That won’t be a problem at all.