BHOPAL: Congress leaders on Monday taunted, teased, mocked and even provoked the ruling-BJP from a dais at a marketplace in Vidisha town setting the juggernaut rolling for campaign in the state. This was the first public meeting addressed by all senior Congress leaders after Union minister of state jyotiraditya Scindia was made chairman of state Congress campaign committee.
From former finance minister Raghavji Bhai’s sex scandal to MP tribal affairs minister Vijay Shah’s alleged offensive remark on chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s wife, the Congress washed all dirty BJP linen in public before throwing down the gauntlet for the upcoming November polls.
Vidisha is BJP’s stronghold and one of the most loyal bastions having continuously won all elections in the past two decades and more. The constituency of BJP patriarch Atal Behari Vajpayee in the early 90s, Vidisha, is currently represented in the Lok Sabha by leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan represented Vidisha for five terms in the 1990s and till 2005 November when he was sworn-in to head the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh.
“This constituency elected a man who is now the chief minister of the state,” Scindia said addressing the gathering at the market in Madhav Chowk, named after Madhavrao Scindia. “Vidisha elected a leader who became the Prime Minister of the country and its MP is now the leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha. After electing so many stalwarts, one would have expected that the constituency would have excellent roads and infrastructure. But all we can find is pot-holes.”
Speaking to residents in Sushma Swaraj’s constituency, the “maharaja” of the erstwhile state of Gwalior, Scindia tried to coax voters into a “family” understanding. Vidisha was part of the royal state of Gwalior before the merger of the state to the Union of India. Scindia recalled this family connection.”This is not a gathering of members of the public but my family is sitting here. I might be standing on a political stage in an election environment. But I have no political connections with this soil. I am not chief minister Chouhan and not the Member of Parliament from here, but I still have a connection. This region always supported my grandmother and my father. Vidisha also blessed me when I stepped into politics,” he said.
Scindia attacked the BJP for widespread corruption, deterioration in the law and order situation under BJP-rule and for anti-farmer policies. He said while the BJP promised to build the Ram temple in Ayodhya, it never gave a date for the construction. Then he took on the Raghavji sex scandal arguing that the former minister who embarrassed the BJP, thrown out of the party, arrested and jailed for unnatural sex was promptly given a place on the dais with the CM and Sushma Swaraj on Sunday because the ruling-party is “terrified of the Congress coming back to power in the state. Former minister Raghavji is the sitting MLA from Vidisha assembly constituency but was expelled after his arrest in the unnatural sex case became apparent. Octogenarian Raghavji was seen on the dais with Chouhan and Sushma Swaraj when the duo announced the setting-up of a medical college in Vidisha on Sunday. Raghavji became the butt of all jokes for Congress leaders at the public meeting with AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh, state PCC chief Kantilal Bhuria and Congress leader of Opposition in the assembly Ajay Singh making a mockery of the sex-scam.
AICC general secretary Mohan Prakash went a step further and mocked chief minister Chouhan for reinstating minister for tribal affairs Vijay Shah, “even after he made distasteful remarks against the chief minister’s wife.” Mohan Prakash claimed: “The chief minister cannot protect the honour of his wife.”
Bureau Report
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