Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh): Taking a jibe on BJP, Former CM Digvijaya Singh said Congress believes in 'tikau' (sustainable) netas and not 'bikau' (salable) ones as he advocated strengthening ‘Anti-Defection Law. He said the punishment under Anti-Defection law should be made harsher and recommended that the local bodies should also come in its ambit.
Digvijaya was speaking to media in Ujjain on Friday.
“The person who is elected on a particular symbol and later get defect or resign from such party, he should be barred from contesting election for six years and he 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 after BJP 'bought' them. However, the Congress MLAs from SC-ST and OBC categories declined the BJP's lucrative offer to serve the public. Big Raja-Maharaja sold themselves to BJP in crores of rupees. Those who committed for ideology would not sell himself. On part of Congress party, we would keep special attention that our candidate should be ‘tikau’ (sustainable) and not ‘bikau’ (salable), he said.
Referring to the BJP rule, the veteran leader said Ladli Bahna 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 Bahna Yojana and Berojgar Bhanja Yojana after 20 years of its governance in MP, " asked he adding, these are all election announcements and are among those 2000 announcements which were made by the CM Chouhan but did not implement them. When I left the power in 2003, there was a debt of Rs 23, 000 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.
Digvijaya Singh charged that the RSS has purchased a land adjacent to the Mahakaleshwar Temple and did complete commercialisation of it as they are of total commercial temperament. They don’t believe in democracy, but run government through money power. RSS is unregistered organisation. It does not have any members and which has no bank account. The Mahakal Corridor Yojana amounting to Rs 300 crore was sanctioned during the Kamal Nath’s regime. A peculiar trend has been seen in Madhya Pradesh that every construction work is being awarded to the contractors from Gujarat. Mahakaleshwar Temple has been commercialised. Previously, no charge was taken for darshan. But now Rs 750 is taken for jalabhishek, Rs 200 for bhasmaarti darshan and Rs 250 for paid darshan. Flouting the norms, Ujjain’s Master Plan is yet not made public. Colonies have been developed on Simhastha Fair area land, he added.
