Digvijaya Singh For Rajgarh: Stakes Are High For Congress Veteran In His ‘Last’ Election

Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh‘s success in the Rajgarh constituency is significant for the party since their future prospects in Madhya Pradesh lie in his victory. He is returning to Rajgarh, his ancestral seat, after 33 years. Digvijaya Singh has also appealed to the people that this election will be his last one.

Digvijaya Singh served as the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister from 1993 to 2003. He is currently a Rajya Sabha MP and a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee. Over the span of decades, he held a vast and various political portfolio in Congress.

Digvijaya Singh, popularly known as Diggi Raja, started his political career when he was elected as the president of the Raghogarh municipality in 1969. He was then 22 years old. In 1977, he was elected as an MLA from the Raghorgarh assembly segment. Interestingly, his father, Balbhadra Singh, was elected from the same seat in  1952. In 1980, he was re-elected from the Raghorgarh and became a minister in Arjun Singh’s cabinet.

In 1984, Digvijaya Singh was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Rajgarh Parliament constituency. He regained the Parliament seat for a second term in 1991. Later, he returned to state politics. As Congress lost power in Madhya Pradesh after the 2004 general elections, Digvijaya Singh decided that he would abstain from polls for the next 10 years. Following, he focused his attention on organisational responsibilities and served as party general secretary from 2004 to 2018. During the tenure, he conducted party work across different states, including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, and Karnataka. Besides, Digvijaya Singh has been associated with a committee appointed by Rahul Gandhi in preparation for the Lok Sabha elections in 2014. And in 2014, he was appointed to the Rajya Sabha.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Digvijaya Singh contested from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh and lost to the BJP’s Digvijaya Singh by a margin of 364822 votes. In the recent assembly elections held in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress leader was entrusted with more than 60 assembly seats.

How will Digvijaya Singh ascertain victory in Madhya Pradesh, which has been held as the BJP’s citadel for decades? Currently, Congress holds only a single Lok Sabha seat in the state. The two-term sitting MP, Rodmal Nagar, is the BJP candidate pitted against Digvijaya Singh. A strong critic of right-wing ideologies and politics, the seasoned leader’s loyalty to the party and his political acumen gained from decades-long experience are undisputable. However, his remarks on the recent Kacchatheevu island issue have invited criticism