Digvijay Singh, Madhusudan Mistri get Rajya Sabha nomination, suspense over Sheila Dikshit

NEW DELHI: The Congress high command on Monday fielded senior leader Digvijaya Singh as party’s Rajya Sabha candidate from a safe seat in Madhya Pradesh. Since Singh now will not be required to contest the Lok Sabha pol ls, he is likely to continue as AICC general secretary and a key member of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi team. He will continue formulating the Congress election strategy and coordinate alliances and campaigns for the April-May poll.

Party sources said by fielding Singh from Rajya Sabha, the party leadership has also ensured he continues to oversees the political affairs of the volatile Andhra Pradesh where he is the official pointsman on delivering the Telangana state and carrying out alliance talks with the TRS. Singh is also AICC in-charge for another crucial state, Karnataka, and the BJP-ruled Goa.

There have been reports that Congress leadership is planning to ask all general secretaries who will be contesting elections to step down from organisational posts.

Singh, a two-term CM, was keen on contesting the Lok Sabha seat from Madhya Pradesh, a state that the BJP won for the third consecutive time in January. On Monday, Congress president Sonia Gandhi held a meeting with Singh and requested him to enter the Rajya Sabha and stay focused on the party’s election management. Singn returning to Parliament after a gap of 20 years signals his formal shifting to national politics. With Singh’s son already an MLA, his brother Lekshman Singh could contest the Lok Sabha polls.

The Congress l ist also shows Rahul Gandhi’s handpicked general secretary Madhusudam Mistry getting a Rajya Sabha ticket from Gujarat. This means Gandhi continues to back Mistry despite many in the party growing increasingly skeptical about this Gujarat leaders’s style and approach to organisational matters. However, another general secretary, Mohan Prakash, who too has been part of many of Rahul’s failed experiments, could not get a RS ticket.

From Andhra Pradesh, the AICC f ielded t h re e loya l -ist — K V P Ramachandra R a o , M A Khan and T S u b b a r a mi R e d d y f o r RS —whi le Murli Deora and Hussain Salam made it from Maharashtra. Motilal Vora gets another term from Chhattisgarh.

The new list is, however, silent on Tamil Nadu where the RS nominat ions are closing on Tuesday. There are hints of the Congress fielding Union Minister G K Vasan as a wild-card entry for the sixth Rajya Sabha seat in alliance with Vijayakanth-led DMDK and PMK if Karunanidhi’s DMK fails to agree on an alliance for Lok Sabha polls.

“The decision on our alliance and Rajya Sabha strategy in Tamil Nadu will be announced at the appropriate time,” said AICC general secretary Mukul Wasnik. AIADMK front is set to bag five seats.