Uma-Digvijay face-off in Bhopal likely

Bhopal: Speculations are rife in BJP circles that the party is mulling over pitting Union minister Uma Bharti against veteran Congress leader Digvijay Singh in the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat to make it a “former chief minister vs former chief minister” contest.

Party sources said Ms Bharti, who has already announced she would not contest the parliamentary elections to spend the coming one and half years on the banks of Ganga, was being persuaded by RSS leadership to withdraw her decision and take on Mr Singh in Bhopal.

“RSS leader Ram Lal has been entrusted with the task of convincing Ms Bharti to  contest from Bhopal,” a senior BJP leader said here on Friday.

BJP spokesman Rajnish Agrawal, however, said it was not wise to hazard a guess on the matter since the party would declare its candidate for Bhopal any moment.

Ms Bharti, the firebrand saffron leader, incidentally, has already announced that her decision was ‘irreversible’ since she never backtracked from it.

The mercurial leader, however, said she would campaign for the party in the Lok Sabha polls, particularly in Bhopal to defeat Mr Singh. “There was no need for BJP to field a big leader against Mr Singh. A worker of the party can defeat him for his pro-minority stand,” she had earlier said.

The party was, however, trying to rope in Ms Bharti to take on Mr Singh in Bhopal because it was she who led the party to power in MP in 2003 the Assembly polls by defeating the Congress then headed by Mr Singh.