BHOPAL: Congress MLA Laxman Singh sat on dharna with the along with people of Chachoda at the residence of his brother and former chief minister Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday.
The MLA was demanding to make Chachoda a district. The Singh’s move has sent Chief Minister Kamal Nath and Digvijaya into a tizzy.
Singh said to eradicate backwardness, it is necessary to make Chachoda a district and it could not done even during the chiefministership of Digvijaya.
On the other hand, the BJP has started criticizing Laxman’s dharna. BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya said it is clear from Laxman sitting at Digvijaya’s place on dharna that who is running the government from behind the curtains. Vijayvargiya said Nath is Chief Minister only in name.
Singh claimed that Chief Minister, in front of Digvijaya
Singh, had said to make Chachoda a district after Jhabua bypolls. We have represented Chachoda, the people elected us several times and also let our family members win Lok Sabha and assembly elections, said the legislator. Chachoda is still quite backward despite Digvijaya Singh working as Chief Minister, he added. Singh said we have our government and we are just demanding to implement the declaration made by the Chief Minister. Singh was accompanied by several people from Chachoda.
Earlier, Singh had met Nath over making Chachoda a district. When MLA Narayan Tripathi had supported Congress over making Maihar a district, Singh had also met Nath and demanded to make Chachoda a district.
Diggi fumes, but meets people from Chachoda: Digvijaya Singh is said to be angry over Laxman Singh’s move. Initially, Digvijaya did not meet people from Chachoda. But after a while, he met them and pacified them. Laxman Singh had created lot of problems for Digvijaya during his term as chief minister. Earlier, Laxman had asked Rahul Gandhi to tender apology to the farmers of the state for not waiving loan, which had put Digvijaya into trouble.
Putting pressure amidst possibility of cabinet expansion: A possibility of cabinet expansion has emerged in the state after Jhabua bypolls. This has made Laxman Singh put pressure on Chief Minister Kamal Nath and his brother Digvijaya Singh. Digvijaya during cabinet formation, got his son Jaivardhan Singh and relative Priyavrat Singh get ministerial berth. He had not given any attention to Laxman Singh, who was quite senior to the both. Since then, Laxman is annoyed but he could not express clearly.