Bhopal: Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh hit out Tuesday at former party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia and said that he ‘auctioned’ Madhya Pradesh’s mandate. He also refuted claims that Scindia was denied ticket for the Rajya Sabha by the Congress leadership. The reason why Scindia left the Congress was to become a Union Minister once again, Singh alleged.
Scindia quit the party to join the BJP earlier this month, triggering the fall of the Kamal Nath-led Congress government in Madhya Pradesh.
In an open letter, Singh said, “When Scindia himself went out to auction Madhya Pradesh’s mandate, (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi, (Union Home Minister Amit) Shah were obviously present there to grab it. But auctioning one’s own house cannot be termed an honourable deal. It is a very painful development. It has decimated the hopes and struggles of not just the Congressmen but all those who believed in the Congress ideology.”
In the 2000-word letter, which he also shared on Twitter, Singh alleged that Scindia has joined the BJP during trying times. “Scindia joined the BJP at a time when the saffron government (at the Centre) is trying to divide the country as per the RSS’s agenda. Some people are saying as there was no possibility for Scindia to get proper post and honour in the Congress, he joined the BJP, but this is wrong. If he wanted to become Madhya Pradesh Congress president, then it had been offered to him in 2013 but then he preferred to remain a Union Minister,” Singh claimed.
“In 2018 too, after the Congress won the state polls, it had offered him the deputy chief minister’s post, but Scindia refused it. He insisted on making his aide Tulsiram Silawat deputy CM. But Kamal Nath did not agree, and the recent development has proved he (Nath) was right. Silawat joined the BJP at a time when the dreaded coronavirus has turned into a pandemic and as the state’s health minister, it was his primary responsibility (to tackle it),” the former chief minister said.
The Congress leader also refuted the allegations that the party did not want to offer Scindia a Rajya Sabha seat.
“As per my information, nobody opposed it as the Congress had the requisite number of MLAs to win two seats of the Upper House from Madhya Pradesh. So it was not an issue. The issue was (he wanted to become) a minister in the central government, and at present it is only possible for Modi and Shah to offer that,” Singh alleged.
PTI
