Digvijaya Singh's brother Laxman Singh blames 'internal rift' for party's defeat in MP

Bhopal, Dec 8 (IANS) Laxman Singh, the younger brother of former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, on Friday held the internal rift in the party's state unit responsible for its massive defeat in the recent Assembly polls.

The former MLA questioned how the party lost when it was in a very strong position in the state.

Blaming the internal fight within the state unit, he said, "In its surveys, the Congress was in a position to win the election in Madhya Pradesh. But, unfortunately the surveys can not reveal how many seats it lost due to sabotage. It (sabotage) is the biggest reason the Congress lost the election," Laxman Singh posted a message on his social media handle.

Laxman contested the election from Chachoura Assembly constituency of Guna district and lost by 61, 570 votes against BJP's Priyanka Penchi.

A couple of days ago, he had said that the Congress has been demanding use of postal ballots for the elections, so why didn't it approach the court? "We have long been demanding postal ballots on social media, media by going among the public, approaching the Election Commission, but till date we have not taken the help of law, why so? Perhaps to hide the insider attack, EVMs have been banned. Blame the machine's mouth."

He made the statement on social media soon after his elder brother and Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh claimed the Congress lost in MP because EVM machines were allegedly hacked.

Digvijaya's son Jaivardhan Singh, who had contested the election from Raghogarh, retained the family's traditional seat by a narrow margin of 4,505 votes.