Throwing an open challenge to leader of Opposition in lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh on Thursday said he would like to contest the next parliamentary election from Vidisha, currently represented by the former.
In an informal talk with reporters, the former Chief Minister said he had no plans to contest from Rajgarh, his hometown, as it was already being represented by a Congress member. To a query whether he would contest from Bellary in Karnataka if Sushma Swaraj enters the fray from there in the 2014 polls, Digvijay replied in the negative.
Digvijay said though he was prepared to contest from Vidisha, nothing had been formalised as yet and names of other constituencies were also being suggested. Swaraj had won the 2009 election from Vidisha by a margin of over 4 lakh votes.
Digvijay said Bhopal MP and former Chief Minister Kailash Joshi would not contest next year’s general elections.
Talking about Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Singh, who has been unsparing in his criticism of Modi, compared him to Adolf Hitler saying he was following the disgraced dictator in many ways to grab power.
“I feel there are a lot of similarities between the two as Modi is trying to follow Hitler in his bid to capture power,” he said, adding that Modi had almost dwarfed BJP in Gujarat. In Gujarat, he said, there was no BJP, only Modi. The situation was similar in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, he said.
The Congress leader said that in Madhya Pradesh there was only Shivraj Singh Chouhan and in Chhattisgarh, there was Raman Singh and no BJP.
He said that one should not be surprised at what Modi can do to get power and added that his dream of making India Congress-free would never be realised.