Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Barely 24 hours after he thanked Congress working president Sonia Gandhi, state Congress president Kamal Nath and Rajya Sabha member Digvijaya Singh for including him in the Congress’ star campaigners list for bypolls, ex-state legislative assembly speaker NP Prajapati was dropped from the list to be replaced with Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tankha.

Prajapati happens to be the MLA from Tendukheda assembly constituency in Narsinghpur district.

“Madhya Pradesh me hone waale 3 Vidhan Sabha evan 1 Lok Sabha up chunavon me mujhe star pracharak banaaye jaane par @INCIndia ki adhyaksh Shrimati Sonia Gandhi ji, Shri @RahulGandhi ji, Shri @kcvenugopalmp ji, Mananiya @OfficeOfKNath ji evam @digvijaya_28 ji ka hriday se aabhaar”, tweeted Prajapati on October 8.

While Prajapati’s followers were upset over party’s decision, an embarrassed Prajapati lost no time in deleting the tweet regarding his expression of gratitude to the Congress leaders, to avoid further embarrassment.

The amended list of star campaigners on October 9 came to light when state BJP media in charge Lokendra Parashar tweeted on Tuesday highlighting the embarrassment caused to the veteran Congress leader, having attached both the lists in juxtaposition.

Interestingly, in the second list there was no change except Prajapati dropped from the list.

“Congress ki adaalat me dalit neta dhanadhya wakeel se case haaraa. Daliton ka aisa samman karti hai Congress. NP Prajapati koi mamooli aadmi nahi, Vidhan Sabha ke purva adhyaksh hain”, tweeted Lokendra Parashar on Tuesday.

Sources in the Congress said that Tankha was not happy after name of star campaigners were finalised and that his well wishers expressed reservations with the senior leadership in New Delhi.

It was after Tankha’s reservations that his name was added in the list of 20 star campaigners at the cost of former speaker Prajapati.

However, later, Vivek Tankha tweeted that had he known that he was included in the list of star campaigners at the cost of NP Prajapati, he would have refused. ‘’List of star campaigners is an election formality. We will conduct election campaigning jointly,’’ said Tankha.

Repeated attempts to take Prajapati’s views on the development failed as he did not take the call.

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