Digvijaya Singh asked me to withdraw from by-poll on Gwalior seat: SP candidate

Roshan Mirza, Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate from Gwalior said that Congress leader Digvijaya Singh asked him to withdraw from upcoming by-poll.

"Digvijaya Singh called me and told me to withdraw from upcoming by-polls. He said I will give you Councillor's ticket. I told him I won't withdraw and will contest," Mirza told when asked about the purported viral audio in which Digvijaya Singh was allegedly asking him to withdraw.

Mirza also alleged that a Congress leader named Aslam offered him Rs 10 lakh to withdrawn his candidature.

Commenting on the viral audio, BJP Leader Lokendra Parashar said that the former chief minister does not believe in democracy but in management.

"Digvijaya Singh has come out of his hole at last stage of elections. He doesn't believe in democracy but in management. He has said in past that elections are won by management. He himself might have made the audio viral,'" Parashar said.

Singh said that the polls are not between the Congress and the BJP but between honest and dishonest.

"This election is not between the Congress and the BJP. This is an election- between honest and dishonest, between loyalty and traitor, between durable and sellable," read the Congress leader's tweet (roughly translated from Hindi).

Voting on 28 Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh by-polls will take place on November 3 and the results will be declared on November 10.

By-elections are due on 28 seats following the resignation of 25 MLAs and the death of three legislators earlier.

In March this year, 22 Congress MLAs resigned from the state Assembly paving the way for BJP's Shivraj Singh Chouhan to take over as Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister for the fourth time.

( With inputs from ANI )