Kartikey Singh Chouhan.
Credit: X/@ks_chauhan23
Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister and union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's son Kartikey Singh Chouhan purportedly warned the voters against electing Congress candidate in the Budhni bypolls or "not a single brick would get laid in the constituency".
A video of Kartikey's speech at a rally in Budhni, a constituency long represented by his father, went viral on social media on Friday, in which he warned people that the area would pay a heavy price if the BJP did not win.
"How will we face our leaders to ask for work?” Kartikey can be heard saying in the video.
"If, by any chance, a Congress MLA wins here… then you realise who will suffer. Why would we harm ourselves? Why would we ruin our own reputation by causing polling irregularities? Don’t we have to go to our Chief Minister to get work done? Don’t we have to approach our honorable Agriculture Minister for our work," he said in Hindi.
He further said addressing the sarpanch, "Tell me, sarpanch ji, how will you get work done? Answer me, if things go wrong, how will you go to our leaders to get work done? What road will you take? If, even by mistake the Congress MLA wins – though that is not going to happen – then not a brick will be laid in any village, you understand that."
The video kicked up a political storm as senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh reposted it on his X account and gave a political advice to the youngster who is at the forefront of campaigning for the first time. Digvijaya said that Kartikey should learn from his father Shivraj Singh Chouhan and avoid such remarks.
Hitting back, Kartikey on Friday said, "I respect Digvijaya Singh. He is a senior leader and has served as the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh twice. I am really proud that he closely follows me and my remarks. He (Digvijaya) only does fear mongering."
"I want to tell him that the people of Budhni are afraid of the Congress rule when they destroyed the state. We wanted to learn from him, but he (Digvijaya Singh) did not do anything worthwhile when he was chief minister (from 1993 to 2003)," Kartikey further said.
The bypoll in the Budhni assembly seat was necessitated after Shivraj Singh Chouhan resigned as MLA following his victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Chouhan, the state's longest-serving chief minister, was inducted into the Narendra Modi government as agriculture minister.
Incidentally, Kartikey's name was doing the rounds as a potential candidate for the bypoll before the BJP chose former MP Ramakant Bhrargava, who will take on Congress' Ramkumar Patel.
The bypoll will be held on November 13, while results will be declared on November 23.
(With PTI inputs)