Indore, Nov 10: Claiming that the future of Congress is “bright” in Madhya Pradesh, party general secretary Digvijay Singh on Wednesday said he would not contest the next assembly elections due in 2013.
“I will be completing ten years in November 2013 sitting in opposition. I have decided not to contest the next assembly polls in the state”, Singh told media persons after addressing a gathering of a social organisation “Development Foundation” here.
“If the Congress party asks me, I would contest the Lok Sabha polls from Madhya Pradesh,” he said.
When asked about the reason behind his decision to not go to the hustings, Singh said, “I have represented assembly five times, and two time as chief minister...now new people should come forward and be given a chance”.
Observing that the assembly polls would be contested under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, Singh said “Congress has a very bright future in the next assembly polls, provided the party members do not bicker among themselves”.
Referring to the change of guard in the BJP-ruled states of Uttarakhand and Karnataka, the former chief minister said “two wickets of CMs in Uttarkhand and Karnataka are down and its now the turn of Shivraj Singh Chouhan”.
When asked whether Congress would seek resignation of Chouhan over the “dumper” scam, the party general secretary said, “No. But I will demand that action should be ensured at the earliest in the scam in which the Lokayukta has given a clean chit to the accused BJP government”.
Replying to a query on upcoming RSS meet in Indore and the donation being collected by the RSS activists, Singh said “it was their routine practice to collect money even from children”.
On the issue of price rise, Digvijay said, “Madhya Pradesh government has imposed the maximum tax on petrol and it was the costliest in the state as compared to the other states”.
He also demanded that the state government should cut down taxes to give respite to public in petro products including petrol and cooking gas.
On the reported statement of Swami Agnivesh that Big Boss house was better than “sansad” (Parliament), Singh said, “probably he was more fond of the company of the people in the Bigg Boss house”.
The former chief minister also dubbed spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravishankar's yatra against corruption as the plan A, B and C of the saffron party.
Clarifying that he does not discriminate in terrorism on religious lines, Singh said he was against the funadamentalism and not RSS.
It was RSS' Apte who had blamed Indresh Kumar in the terror case,” he added.
