Digvijay Singh will fight from wherever Rahul Gandhi wants

Bhopal: Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Monday responded to the challenge thrown at him by chief minister Kamal Nath to seek elections from the toughest seat in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, saying, “I am ready to contest wherever my leader Rahul Gandhiji wants me to”.

Mr Singh took to Twitter, his favourite platform to speak his mind in recent times, to reply to Mr Nath’s ‘appeal’ to him to choose the toughest seat if he desired to contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

“Thank you Kamal Nath ji for inviting me to contest from weak seats of Congress. I am grateful to you for considering me capable (of this),” he tweeted.

Mr Singh added that accepting challenges was his habit.

“With the blessings of people of Raghogarh, I won in 1977, defying a Janata Dal wave. From any place leader Rahul Gandhiji asks me, I am ready to contest,” he said.

Incidentally, Mr Singh’s reply came a day after AICC general secretary Jyotiraditya Scindia, considered his arch rival in Congress in Madhya Pradesh, echoed Mr Nath’s view.

Talking to reporters in Chhindwara in MP on Saturday, Mr Nath had said there were 2-3-4 seats in MP where Cong-ress had not won in last 30 years and he wanted Mr Singh to contest from the toughest seat.

Sources said the party leadership wanted Mr Singh to choose either Bhopal or Indore seat to contest from in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Mr Nath, if talks in Congress are to be believed, was keen to field Mr Singh in Bhopal where Congress won last time was in 1984 in the aftermath of assassination of Indira Gandhi.

Congress leader K N Pradhan had won from Bhopal then. Similarly, last time Congress won the Indore seat was in 1984 too when party leader Prakash Chandra Setty won the seat.

Sources said Mr Singh might have been more comfortable in Rajgarh seat, considered his pocket borough, which he had represented in 1984 and 1991.

His brother Laxman Singh, sitting Congress MLA, had won the seat in 1994, 1996, 1998 and 1999 as a Congress candidate and in 2004 as a BJP candidate.

Mr Digvijay Singh’s son, brother and nephew are currently representing three out of eight assembly seats under Rajgarh Lok Sabha seat.

“Our strategy is to field veteran leaders in difficult seats to win as many seats as possible in the upcoming LS polls. The call to Mr Singh to choose the toughest seat is part of the strategy”, a Congress spokesman here said.

BJP won 27 out of total 29 Lok Sabha seats in the 2014 polls leaving the rest two  seats to Congress.