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Several leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, called out Congress leader Digvijaya Singh for not voting on Sunday in the sixth phase of the national general election. Throughout the day, the Congress leader didn't budge from Bhopal, the constituency from which he is contesting elections this time.
Referring to his absence from the voting process, PM Modi called the veteran “Diggy Raja” while addressing a gathering in Madhya Pradesh's Ratlam.
Taunting him further, the PM said: “The country is electing its representatives. Even I went to Ahmedabad to cast my vote. The President and the Vice President of the country were standing in queues to cast their votes. But Diggy Raja didn't feel the need to cast his vote.”
He questioned if the Congress leader’s motive was to teach first-time voters that exercising their right to the ballot was not important in deciding the future of the country, and commented: “You have committed a sin, Diggy Raja”.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the state’s former chief minister, said he was “shocked” to find out that a person who had been the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and had been exhorting people to vote didn't bother to vote himself.
Notably, Singh, who is fighting the polls against BJP's Pragya Singh Thakur this time, remained in Bhopal throughout the day although he had told reporters that he would come out to vote later. However, it eventually turned out that he could not make it to Rajgarh, 140 km away from Bhopal.
Although Singh has claimed he could not make it because he was overseeing voting in Bhopal, the saffron party claimed he had camped in Bhopal because he was “nervous” to take part in the contest he had taken up as a dare from party colleague Chief Minister Kamal Nath.
Singh denied the claims saying he regretted not voting and, to rectify that, he would get himself registered as a voter in Bhopal, reported NDTV.
Bhopal has historically voted the BJP to power for the past 30 years and is being touted as a tough feat for the Congress. Interestingly, Kamal Nath dared the veteran to pick the “toughest seat” to contest. The 72-year-old, nevertheless, claims he wanted to go with Rajgarh and not Bhopal.
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