"If I Speak, Congress Loses Votes": Digvijaya Singh On Skipping Rallies

Senior Congress leader and former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh Digvijaya Singh has said there is a reason why he is skipping the election rallies: Congress loses votes with his speeches.

Mr Singh said he has shunned both publicity and speeches. "Whoever gets the ticket, even if it's an enemy, we should make him win. I only have one work; no publicity, no speeches. Congress loses votes with my speeches, which is why I don't attend rallies," news agency ANI quoted Mr Singh as saying during an informal interaction with party workers in Bhopal.

A two-term chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Mr Singh, also told Congress workers that they should work for the victory of all the candidates fielded by the party even if some of them are perceived to be "rebels" in the forthcoming assembly elections.

His home state Madhya Pradesh will vote to elect a new government on November 28 and the Congress is pulling out all the stops to wrest power from the BJP who has been in power in the state for past three consecutive terms.

But the Congress leader has been at the receiving end recently when BSP chief Mayawati said leaders like Mr Singh didn't want Congress to ally with her party.

Mr Singh had said Maywati was under pressure from the Centre not to join hands with the Congress in the forthcoming assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The senior leader denied the charges that it was because of him that the alliance between the Congress and BSP did not work out.

Mr Singh's out of turn comments and tweets have landed him in controversies in the past. Recently, he courted a major controversy by posting a tweet that used abusive language against Prime Minister Narendra Modi that prompted the BJP to demand an apology from his party for the "filthy abuse."

Mr. Singh, however, stood his ground and said: "Retweets are never endorsements. This is the basic principle of Twitter." His comments on Hindu terror and the RSS in the past had raised controversy.

With inputs from ANI