DIGGy kEpt away fROm caNDIDatE SELEctION
Singh’s loyalists stated that he himself was keeping away from interfering in ticket distribution in MP and Chhattisgarh.
The Congress candidates for the Madhya Pradesh elections will be decided by the trio of party president Rahul Gandhi, state Congress chief Kamal Nath and campaigning in-charge Jyotiraditya Scindia. This effectively means that former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, 71, has played out his innings in the politics of the central state. Singh’s tenure as a Rajya Sabha MP will end in mid2020.
Ever since becoming active in politics in the late 1960s and till the last Assembly election in 2013, Singh has always played a crucial role in the deciding candidates for a large number of the 230 seats in the present state Assembly whose strength was 320 before Chhattisgarh was carved out from it in November 2000.
Bhopal- based party sources said that Singh, who is still the only Congress leader in the state who has a team of loyal party cadre in every district of the state, is not taking part in the decision-making process regarding candidate selection, something which he used to do till 2013.
“Scindia and Kamal Nath have been given the final authority by Rahul Gandhi to decide on who will get the ticket from where. Rahul Gandhi has told them they can consult any leader, take inputs including from Singh, Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh and other senior state leaders. The final list will be cleared by Rahul Gandhi himself,” a senior party functionary said.
According to state Congress leaders, Singh has been asked to focus on strengthening the organisation and not to do any public interface. Singh had earlier stated that “mera kaam keval ek... Koi prachar nahi, koi bhashan nahi. Mere bhashan dene se to Congress ke vote kat te hai… mai jata nahi ( I have only one job… No campaigning, no speech. When I deliver a speech, Congress votes get reduced… so I don’t go).”
Some of Singh’s loyalists stated that he himself is keeping away from interfering in ticket distribution in Madhya Pradesh and in Chhattisgarh.
“Till the last elections, he would influence candidate selection in more than 60 seats in Madhya Pradesh and 20 in Chhattisgarh. This time he himself told those who met him for tickets that he would try to help them but he could not commit on anything. It is good that he did not give false hopes to anyone,” a party functionary and a ticket hopeful said. Union Home Minister and senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh on Saturday attacked the Congress for trying to build an alliance against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019 elections, but warned that all those who join such an alliance would regret later. “The Congress which is struggling hard to form an anti-Modi front without any clarity is opportunistic and power centric, it will not work,” said Singh. Rajnath Singh addressed a gathering of around 70,000 at Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) national convention at Parade Grounds in Secunderabad and called upon the delegates to sacrifice the next six months of their time to see that the BJP wins over 300 Lok Sabha seats in next year’s election. “We cannot afford to lose the election as it is crucial for us to make India a superpower in the world,” Singh said. The convention was also attended by a galaxy of BJP senior leaders, including Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, Dharmendra