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This is an archive article published on August 18, 1999

Digvijay pushes many loyalists through

BHOPAL, Aug 17: It was a personal guarantee'' from Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh which enabled controversial Congress le...

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BHOPAL, Aug 17: It was a 8220;personal guarantee8221; from Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh which enabled controversial Congress leader Mahesh Joshi to get the party8217;s ticket for the Indore seat last Friday, party sources here have indicated.

During the final round of talks regarding the six controversial MP seats left undecided by the party high command, Digvijay Singh is reported to have told Sonia Gandhi that only Joshi could defeat BJP national general secretary Sumitra Mahajan in Indore.

Besides Joshi, two dozen Digvijay loyalists figure in the list of Congress candidates for 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state, indicating that the CM had the last word in the choice of party nominees in the state. By manipulating a ticket for former chief minister Shyama Charan Shukla from Mahasamund, Singh has also managed to send one of his potential rivals in state politics to the Centre.

The dispute for Mahasamund was between V.C. Shukla and Pawan Diwan, who had threatened to walk over to the NationalistCongress Party if denied a ticket. When Sonia sought his help in resolving the dispute, Digvijay quietly proposed the name of VC8217;s elder brother as a compromise candidate.

What enabled Digvijay to get tickets for a large number of his supporters was his suggestion that the party should replace old war horses with new faces in the constituencies where the BJP won in the 1996 and 1998 Lok Sabha elections. The beneficiaries include Madhavi Chaudhary Sagar, Sundarlal Tiwari Rewa, Tanwant Singh Keer Khandwa, Pushpa Devi Singh Rajigarh and Rajkumar Patel Hoshangabad.

 

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