Ujjain: Digvijaya pitches for harsher Anti-Defection Law

Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh): Former CM Digvijaya Singh here on Friday said that the ‘Anti-Defection Law’ should be strengthened and it should be made harsher and the local bodies should also come in its ambit. ‘The person who is elected on a particular symbol and later defect or resign from such party, should be barred from contesting election for six years and shall also not be entitled to get any government post,’ he added.

Addressing a press conference, he claimed that the Congress would form the government in MP in 2023. We did it in 2018 though some of our wealthy MLAs started making money and got purchased themselves by the BJP. However, the Congress MLAs from SC/ST and OBC categories declined to be bought by the BJP. Big Raja-Maharaja were sold to BJP in crores of rupees. Those who are ideologically firm would not be sold. On Congress’s part, we would keep special attention that our candidate should be ‘tikau’ (sustainable) and not ‘bikau’ (saleable), he said.

Referring to BJP rule, the veteran leader said Ladli Behna Yojana was first announced during Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka assembly elections and Shivraj Singh Chouhan has stolen the scheme from there. Why BJP is talking about Ladli Behna Yojana and Berozgar Bhanja Yojana after 20 years of its governance in MP, he asked adding, these are all election announcements and are among those 2k announcements which were made by CM Chouhan but did not implement them. When I left the hot seat in 2003, there was a debt of Rs 23k crore on the state which has now reached to more than Rs 3.5 lakh crore. If Congress comes to power, we would focus on curtailing expenditures and decisions will be taken in favour of poor people with honesty, he said.