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A boost to Digvijay camp

By Our Staff Correspondent

BHOPAL, JULY 18. The appointment of the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Digvijay Singh, and the former Congress MP

from Khajuraho and AICC Spokesman, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, as All-India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretaries along with the inclusion of Jyotiraditya Scindia in the Congress Working Committee as a special invitee comes as a significant development for the party unit in the State.

Mr. Digvijay Singh has a long record of managing the party organization and grass-root level party workers first as the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) President and then the State Chief Minister for two consecutive terms.

When he was on the verge of completing his first term in office as Chief Minister, Mr. Singh had said that he would not accept any public office for the next five years if the Congress party got defeated in the elections in 1998. The results in that election went the Congress way and Mr. Singh returned to power for the second consecutive term and became the only Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh to have completed two successive five-year terms in office. At the end of his second innings, he once again talked of "sanyas" and said that he would prefer to be on the road in the face of defeat. This time, the Congress party lost the Assembly elections and ended up retaining only 38 of the 230 seats.

After the Congress party's defeat, some of those in the State party unit, who were opposed to Mr. Singh, had started writing him off politically. His detractors had unleashed propaganda to suggest that Mr. Singh was no longer in the good books of the AICC President, Sonia Gandhi, due to the party's poor electoral performance. Mr. Singh's supporters are now happy.

Congressmen feel that Mr. Chaturvedi's elevation as AICC General Secretary, in-charge Uttar Pradesh,

comes as a reward for his "brilliantly penetrating" performance in Parliament. Mr. Chaturvedi, who is

known for his oratory skills, command over Hindi, and suave manners, is being seen in party circles here

as an asset for the organisation.

The Scindia faction in the State Congress unit is also excited with the induction of Mr. Jyotiraditya Scindia as a special invitee in the Congress Working Committee.

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