‘What is the necessity?’: Shivraj Singh Chouhan on contesting Lok Sabha polls

Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister and senior BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan,60, said here on Tuesday that he was not willing to contest general elections.

In an interview, Chouhan, who was the CM for 13 years and is now an MLA in the assembly as the BJP lost the state elections to the Congress in November 2018, said, “It is my view that I should not contest the (Lok Sabha) election. It has been just four months since I contested the state assembly elections. Now there’s an election again. What is the necessity for me to contest it?”

Chouhan’s name is doing the rounds in political circles as the possible BJP candidate from Bhopal to take on Congress nominee for the seat, ex-AICC general secretary, Digvijaya Singh (72).

According to BJP sources who did not wish to be named, Chouhan is under pressure from the party leadership to contest the Lok Sabha election from Bhopal, given that the Congress has fielded a political heavyweight like Singh in order to snatch the seat from the BJP after four decades.

Chouhan, sources said, wanted either himself or his wife, Sadhna Singh, to contest from a safer seat like Vidisha and that Bhopal was not his choice.

Digvijaya Singh — who, self-admittedly, also wanted to contest from a safer seat like Rajgarh, his home turf — was declared the Congress’s Bhopal candidate after chief minister Kamal Nath said that Singh should contest from a tough seat.

“I can’t say that I will not contest the election at all,” Chouhan said. “For, this will amount to defiance (of the party). How can I take a decision like that on my own? But, whatever may the party decide, the fact is that my contesting the election is not proper. There are other workers,” he said, pointing to many leaders in the BJP who were capable of defeating Digvijaya Singh.

When asked whether he didn’t want to contest from Vidisha either, which he had, after all, represented in the Lok Sabha five times in a row, he said, “When I don’t want to contest elections, it means I don’t want to contest election from any seat. If I have to contest the election, then how can Bhopal be (a) bad (seat)?”

Chouhan said that Digvijaya Singh was not an issue in MP politics but as far as the election is concerned, even an ordinary BJP worker would be able to defeat him.

“We are not creating any hype but he (Digvijaya Singh) knows what he has done. People have not forgotten his work and him as yet. That’s why I don’t want to discuss him,” said Chouhan.

On the delay in the BJP declaring its candidates for high-profile seats like Bhopal, Vidisha and Indore, Chouhan said there was still time for the elections (in Madhya Pradesh) and that the names would be announced at the right time.

State Congress spokesperson, Pankaj Chaturvedi, said, “The BJP leadership is treating Shivraj Singh Chouhan as a leader who has lost his value for the party. That’s why he was not made the leader of the Opposition in the state assembly. He was not given permission by his party to take out an ‘Abhar yatra’ (a tour to thank people) either and he is being kept away from Madhya Pradesh politics.”