Digvijaya Singh’s Letter Accusing State Election Committee of Doing Business on Ticket Distribution Goes Viral; Congress Leader says 'Never Wrote it'

Bhopal: Soon after Congress president Rahul Gandhi concluded his two-day poll campaign in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday, a letter allegedly written by senior party leader Digvijaya Singh to Sonia Gandhi, wherein he is asking for tickets for 57 candidates for the upcoming assembly elections, has created a stir on the social media.

In the letter, dated October 27, 2018, Singh complains about being ignored by the party and accuses the Central Election Committee of running a racket over ticket distribution. He also asks for tickets for 57 candidates, terming them dedicated workers of the party who are not aligned with any party faction and are apprehensive of denial of ticket.

The senior party leader has, however, denied writing the letter. “What a fraud! I have never written this letter,” he posted on Twitter on Tuesday night.

A few hours later he posted another tweet, claiming that he was not the general secretory of AICC on October 27 as suggested by the letter head. “In the same case I would like to point out that I was not GS AICC on 27/10/18 the letter head on which this letter has been supposedly written,” Singh posted.

Referring to Singh’s Narmada Yatra, the letter claims he had disassociated himself from the party’s main affairs but "but when I learnt that the State Election Committee was undertaking ticket distribution like a business, I was pained and compelled to ink this missive.”

Hoping that the party high command would offer a chance to the deserving candidates, the letter says that Singh is ready to take to field in a selfless manner for the party’s benefit.

However, as always is the case in MP politics, the BJP and the Congress leaders got engaged in war of words on the said letter. While the BJP termed it Congress’ internal tussle, the latter accused the BJP of engineering the plot. “A seasoned politician like Digvijay Singh uploaded the letter on his own Twitter handle proves that he wanted the content to be known to his followers and the party,” BJP spokesperson Rajnish Agrawal said, claiming it’s Singh’s “mann ki baat” and “whether it’s fake or not is a different thing.”

Responding to the allegations, Congress spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi said Singh has himself clarified that the letter is fake so the issue should be put to rest. “We can understand that the BJP is unnerved due to fear of losing the forthcoming assembly polls and the letter is a creation of Dirty Tricks Department of the BJP,” taunted Chaturvedi.

The letter has come at a time when Singh’s absence in Rahul Gandhi’s public meetings during the two-day trip to MP’s Malwa-Nimar region was being questioned. In his typical style, Singh had made up for his absence by firing two tweets on Monday, welcoming Gandhi in Indore, the city where he was born and educated.

In another tweet, Singh had mentioned that he was assigned some important task by the party president so he would remain absent from the Indore-Ujjain function. It was not clear if it was Kamal Nath or Rahul Gandhi who assigned him the task.

Singh had landed himself in another controversy recently after a video of him saying he avoids attending public functions of the party as his appearance costs votes to the party, had gone viral. The two-time chief minister of MP has kept himself away from the party affairs ahead of assembly polls while handling responsibility of uniting party cadre as the chairman of Co-ordination Committee.