Digvijaya Singh files nomination from MP's Rajgarh LS seat

Bhopal: Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh filed his nomination papers from the Rajgarh Lok Sabha constituency on Tuesday.

Before reaching to district election office, two-time ex-CM, Digvijaya Singh offered his prayers at a temple of Goddess in his home town Raghogarh. He was accompanied by his wife and former journalist, Amrita Rai.

Digvijaya Singh (77), who hails from the erstwhile royal family of Raghogarh (under Rajgarh), will be up against BJP candidate and two-term sitting MP Rodmal Nagar.

The Congress veteran had become the MP from Rajgarh for the first time in 1984. He had, however, lost it to the BJP’s Pyarelal Khandelwal in 1989 before wresting the seat back from him in 1991.

Singh had vacated the seat in 1993 after he was chosen by the Congress as the state’s CM.

His younger brother Lakshman Singh then won Rajgarh in a 1994 by-lection and held it until 2009, albeit with a twist: he joined the BJP in 2003 and won the seat on its ticket in 2004.

In 2009, Lakshman Singh was defeated by the Congress’ Narayan Singh Amlabe and then returned to the Congress in 2013.

The BJP bagged Rajgarh constituency for the two consecutive terms (2014 and 2019), and therefore, the party has retained Nagar, an RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) functionary and loyalist of ex-CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan for the third term.

He defeated Congress’ Mona Sustani with a margin of over four lakh votes in 2019.