Jogi, Sonia: Patch-up for polls

New Delhi, March 30: Even as colleagues they were bitter rivals. Now they will finally face off to settle their three-year-old battle for primacy.

The Congress high command, in a surprise move today, named “suspended” leader Ajit Jogi its candidate from Mahasamund, where the former Chhattisgarh chief minister will take on his erstwhile party rival Vidya Charan Shukla.

Shukla, who recently switched loyalties from the Nationalist Congress Party, has been fielded by the BJP from the constituency, held traditionally by the Shukla family. His elder brother Shyama Charan, who represented Mahasamund in the 13th Lok Sabha as a Congress member, has shifted to Raipur, presumably to make way for him.

Sensing an opportunity to rehabilitate himself in the Chhattisgarh Congress, of which he was the unquestioned boss till December when the BJP wrested power, Jogi is understood to have offered himself as a candidate to take on Shukla. With opinion polls not giving much hope for the party in the state, the high command accepted Jogi’s offer.

Justifying the move to field a “tainted” and “suspended” Jogi in the poll fray, senior general secretary Ambika Soni said though the former chief minister was under CBI investigation in the cash-for-MLA scam, nothing had come out of it so far.

In any case, the Congress leader added, Jogi was suspended only because he made the mistake of not consulting the high command before giving a letter of support to a rebel BJP group to form a government.

Since then, Jogi has tendered an apology to the leadership and based on it the party’s disciplinary action committee has exonerated him of all charges.

Although his suspension has not been formally revoked, the central leadership cleared the way for his return to the party when, on February 24, it asked him to campaign in the Northeast.

All 11 constituencies in Chhattisgarh will go to polls on April 20.