"Despite proving my loyalty...": Denied a ticket for MP polls, Congress leader Murli Morwal hits out

Speaking to ANI, Morwal said, "Injustice has been done to me. When Rahul-ji said the backward classes must be given more representation (in legislative assemblies), I had hoped to win the party's ticket to contest the upcoming elections."

Invoking the collapse of the previous Congress government, after then-party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia triggered a rebellion in the ranks with a band of his followers and eventually joined the BJP, Morwal added, "When the Congress government was on the verge of collapse in 2018, I did not accept offers of Rs 30-40 crore to switch sides. Despite proving my loyalty to the party at the time, I have been denied a ticket to contest the upcoming elections. Nobody in Badnagar Tehsil knows Rajendra Singh Solanki (the Congress candidate)."

"I came to request Kamal Nath-ji to reconsider the candidature of Rajendra Singh Solanki (from Badnagar Tehsil) and give the ticket to me instead. I would have won by thousands of votes. If the party doesn't consider my request, I will do whatever my followers ask me," Morwal said.

The Congress has fielded Rajendra Singh Solanki from the Badnagar assembly constituency in Ujjain.

The state is set to go to polls on November 17 and the counting of votes, along with those of four other election-bound states, will take place on December 3.

In the last 2018 assembly elections, Congress won 114 seats with a vote share of 40.89 per cent while the BJP came a close second with 109 seats and a vote share of 41.02 per cent.

The Congress came to power with Kamal Nath taking oath as the chief minister.

However, the government was reduced to a minority in 2020 after Scindia raised the flag of rebellion along with 22 loyalist MLAs and switched over to the BJP.

The Congress government eventually fell and the BJP filled the power vacuum, with Shivraj Singh Chouhan returning as chief minister. (ANI)