Bhopal: Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh will submit his nomination papers for the post of national president of Congress from the party office on Friday. Congress insiders said that Singh will take the nomination papers from the Central Election Authority, as the CEA chairman is currently out of Delhi.
Singh is said to be the front runner for the post of Congress president as he has a vast organizational and administrative experience. He has been the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh twice and is counted among the loyalists of the Gandhi family. There were speculations about Kamal Nath also contesting for the post, but he has backed out at the last moment.
Singh, who started politics from Raghogarh in Madhya Pradesh, has remained relevant in politics for the last 53 years. At the age of 22, Digvijay he started politics from the municipality level. Singh, a member of the Raghogarh royal family, studied mechanical engineering, but later got drawn into politics.
Also read: 'Congress president cannot hold two posts': Gehlot subscribes to Rahul
He became the president of the Raghogarh Municipal Council for the first time in 1969 when he was only 22 years. At the age of 25, he joined the Congress. His father Balbhadra Singh was associated with the Bharatiya Jana Sangh Party. After joining the Congress, in 1977, he became an MLA from Raghogarh for the first time.
In 1980, Digvijay Singh again reached the Assembly after winning from this seat and took over the ministerial post for the first time. Arjun Singh was the Chief Minister at that time. Digvijay Singh won the Lok Sabha elections in 1984 and came close to the Gandhi family. He was defeated by Pyarelal Khandelwal of BJP in 1989.
However, he won in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections. Singh lost the second election in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Bhopal Lok Sabha seat.
In the 1993 Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, the Congress got 174 out of 320 seats after which Singh's political guru Arjun Singh made him the Chief Minister even as Shyamacharan Shukla, Madhavrao Scindia and Subhash Yadav were also in the race.
