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Madhya Pradesh's longest-serving chief minister and BJP stalwart Shivraj Singh Chouhan is likely to play an important role in national politics with Prime Minister Narendra Modi telling an election rally recently that he wanted to "take him to Delhi (Centre)". Chouhan, who was the chief minister from 2005 to 2023, is contesting the Lok Sabha polls from his stronghold Vidisha, an ancient city incidentally located on the Bhopal-Delhi train route. The BJP candidate is up against Pratap Bhanu Sharma, a Congressman who won the seat in 1980 and 1984 on the back of the post-Emergency Indira Gandhi juggernaut and later, the sympathy wave caused by her death. These were the only two occasions when the Congress won the seat since it was created in 1967. Speaking at a rally in Madhya Pradesh's Harda on April 24, Modi praised Chouhan saying the two had served together in the party organisation and also as chief ministers. "When Shivraj went to Parliament, I was working together as general ...
BJP veteran Shivraj Singh Chouhan has claimed the "wrong" decision of Congress to not attend the Ram temple consecration ceremony in Ayodhya has put party leaders in a spot as they cannot give a convincing reply to the common people. Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Chouhan was speaking on Sunday at a gathering in Vidisha where several Congress workers joined the BJP ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. "After the Congress refused to participate in the consecration ceremony, several friends from the opposition party told me that they are finding it hard to give a reply to people. Such wrong decisions can't give the right direction to the country," said Chouhan, who is the BJP candidate from the Vidisha Lok Sabha constituency in MP. The former CM said his father was in the Congress, but the party has undergone a sea change from the old days. "There was only Congress at that time. But today's Congress is not that one. This is not the Congress of Mahatma Gandhi or even that of .
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Sunday claimed that if the ED was stopped and section 45 of the PMLA abolished, no one would cross over to the BJP and its leaders like Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Vasundhara Raje may form their own political outfits. Chouhan and Raje were overlooked by the BJP for the chief minister posts in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan respectively despite ensuring the party's return to power in the assembly polls held recently. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge by his side, Kejriwal responded to a question on opposition leaders joining the BJP, saying, "Today, if the ED (Enforcement Directorate) is stopped and section 45 of the PMLA (The Prevention of Money-Laundering Act) is abolished, half of the BJP leaders will quit the party." "There is only one agency (ED) which is responsible for leaders joining the BJP. No one will join the BJP if PMLA section 45 is removed. Leaders like Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Vasundhara Raje may form their own parties by the ...