Madhya Pradesh minister writes to Shivraj, says don’t wish to contest elections

BHOPAL: A minister of state in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government has made it public that he won’t contest the November 28 poll, but instead work for the victory of all party candidates in Vidisha district.

Minister of state for horticulture and food processing (independent charge) Suryaprakash Meena, who is the two-time sitting MLA from Shamsabad, has written to the Madhya Pradesh CM about his desire to not contest polls this time. The letter has gone viral on social media.

Considered close to Chouhan, Meena told journalists in Vidisha that he had voluntarily decided not to contest the polls and instead work for party’s victory on all five seats.

Vidisha district houses the five seats of Vidisha, Shamsabad, Kurwai, Sironj and Basoda, out of which three are held by the BJP and two by the Congress.

While Meena has claimed that there was no pressure on him to withdraw his claim on the seat from which he was elected in 2008 and 2013, informed sources within the party confided to TNIE that all internal surveys had revealed a high-level of anti-incumbency against him.

There are many “fake” letters in the name of senior BJP and Congress leaders which are doing rounds of the social media. These include the handwritten resignation of MP Tourism Corporation head Tapan Bhowmick and a letter written in the name of ex-state BJP president Nandkumar Chauhan to BJP chief Amit Shah, which mentions his displeasure over ticket distribution.

While Bhowmick has already complained about the fake letter to the EC, Chauhan has said that he hasn’t written the letter which went viral over social media.

Another “fake” letter written in the name of ex-CM and senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh mentioning about his displeasure over the manner in which party is distributing tickets too has gone viral over social media. Singh, too, has termed the letter as a fake.

Earlier, a list of 150 Congress candidates for the November 28 poll went viral on Thursday evening, but the party leaders in Bhopal termed the list as “fake”.

Reacting to these developments, BJP state spokesperson Deepak Vijayvargiya said the misuse of social media needs to be curbed and these developments need to be seriously taken into consideration by the Election Commission.