‘Pehchante ho na?’: Digvijaya reconnects with home base in MP for ‘swan song’, turns up heat on BJP

The beating of drums marks the return of the Raghogarh Raja.

Popularly known as Raja sahab in Madhya Pradesh, state Congress heavyweight and ex-chief minister Digvijaya Singh, 77, walks with the pace of a young man, his eyes piercing through the crowd, looking for old followers and new supporters.

“Pehchante ho na? (Don’t you know me?),” Digvijaya asks a gathering of women in Chachaura’s Umarthana village, as he urges them to vote for him.

This Lok Sabha election could be Digvijaya’s last one, as he indicates himself. “Well, I am 77 now. I don’t want to contest at the age of 82.”

It is another matter that he is known for his remarkable energy which was also seen when he traversed the vast state on foot in 2017-18.

The scion of the erstwhile Raghogarh ruling family and two-term CM has returned to the Rajgarh Lok Sabha constituency to contest after 33 years. The past master of MP politics knows the constituency well, having fought his first parliamentary polls from here four decades ago. The Raghogarh Assembly segment is part of this seat.

Speaking to The Indian Express on his campaign trail, Digvijaya explains how this election is different from others. “The stakes are very high. The Constitution, democracy and the very existence of democratic values are under threat,” he says.

In the 1984 polls, Digvijaya got elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time from Rajgarh. In 1989, however, he lost the election to the BJP’s Pyarelal Khandelwal. He wrested the seat from the BJP in the 1991 elections.

When Digvijaya returned to state politics for a 10-year stint as the CM, from 1993 to 2003, he passed on the baton to his younger brother Laxman Singh, who went on to win the seat the next five times for the Congress (four times) and the