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Digvijay Singh front-runner for CM's post

Having led the party to victory in the elections against heavy odds, Chief Minister Digvijay Singh is likely to be re-elected leader of the Congress legislature party in Madhya Pradesh.

The newly-elected 173 Congress legislators have been asked to reach the state capital for the CLP meeting scheduled for tomorrow.

Senior party leader Pranab Mukherjee and All-India Congress Committee general secretary Tariq Anwar will attend the meeting as central observers, AICC secretary Ramesh Chennithala said today.

Notwithstanding the reported statements of some leaders that there would be no ''automatic choice'' for leadership of the CLP, state Congress committee sources said Digvijay Singh would be the '' natural choice'' to head the next Congress government.

Besides earning the credit for retaining power in the state by neutralising the anti-incumbency factor, Singh has the allegiance of almost all the newly-elected legislators, the sources claimed.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi's statement that Singh was the only leader who continuously maintained that the party would retain power, also gave an indication of the party high command's inclination to retain him. He had called on Gandhi at New Delhi.

Congress sources said senior party leader and former Union minister Kamal Nath, who played a crucial role in Singh's election as CLP leader in December 1993, was supporting him this time also. Nath's supporters had retained all the eight seats falling in his Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency, as also in some of the neighbouring constituencies.

Most of the newly-elected legislators, who had already reached the state capital, called on the chief minister and MP party unit president Urmila Singh and congratulated them for the party's victory.

In the November 25 elections, even the traditional BJP strongholds of Madhya Bharat and Mahakaushal regions crumbled while the Congress was successful in keeping intact its citadel of Chattisgarh. The BJP had high stakes in Chattisgarh, as it felt that the A B Vajpayee government's move to carve out a new state would pay rich dividends at the hustings.

Among the 46 members of the Digvijay Singh cabinet who contested the elections, 32 won while 14 failed to retain their seats.

According to Congress leaders, the strategy of introducing new faces in the elections and holding of Panchayat elections for empowering people at the grassroots level were among the major factors that influenced the poll outcome.

UNI

Assembly Election '98

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