MP Assembly poll rout aftermath: Congress leaders come to blows over ‘Digvijaya Singh role’

Congress party insiders said the argument started after Ahirwar accused Digvijaya Singh, former MP chief minister and currently a Rajya Sabha MP, of mistakes in ticket distribution, which was contested by Khan.

Congress spokesperson K K Mishra said the party had taken note of the matter and issued show cause notices to the two leaders. If the explanation by the two leaders was not found to be satisfactory, “disciplinary action would be taken”, Mishra said.

Khan told The Indian Express that Ahirwar and he had had differences in the past. “(On Monday) We were at the PCC campus and talking about the Assembly election loss, when Ahirwar alleged that Digvijaya took money for ticket distribution. He also questioned Digvijaya’s statements blaming EVMs, which made me angry.”

Khan added that it was “all a ploy by Ahirwar to leave the party and join the BJP”. Ahirwar, in turn, accused Khan of being “anti-Dalit” and “harbouring ill feelings” towards him. Adding that he would tell the party this, Ahirwar said: “There was some talk about the Assembly elections, but I never said a word against Raja saheb (Digvijaya).”

Since the loss in the elections, in which Digvijaya played a prominent role along with fellow former CM Kamal Nath, the veteran has more than once raised the possibility of EVM tampering. Last week, Digvijaya held a press conference in Bhopal where he tried to prove with a dummy EVM how this could be done.

The Congress, which ran a high-optics campaign under Digvijaya and Kamal Nath, with other leaders squeezed out, finished with a mere 66 seats in the Assembly polls, with the BJP winning 163. In 2018, the Congress had won 114 seats, emerging as the single-largest party, ahead of the BJP’s tally of 109.

During a recent event in Guna, Digvijaya’s brother Lakshman Singh, who lost in the Assembly polls by a huge margin, also questioned the attack on EVMs, saying: “Did the EVM machine say make someone a Congress candidate?… Some machines can be faulty, but it is not the case that all machines are faulty. Who introduced EVM machines? It was the Congress party.” Lakshman, who earlier had a brief stint in the BJP after rebelling against the Congress, went on to accuse “dalaals (middlemen)” of leading the Congress down “the wrong path”.

State BJP spokesperson Narendra Saluja, who shared the videos of the Congress leaders fighting on X, said: “Ahirwar is a supporter of (former MP unit chief) Kamal Nath, while Khan is Digvijaya Singh’s supporter. After Jitu Patwari was appointed PCC chief, supporters of Singh and Nath are regularly resigning to destabilise him. This shows the intense internal disputes in the Congress.”