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Why Sadhvi Pragya Thakur Vs Digvijaya Singh In Bhopal Would Be Significant

Malegaon blast-accused Thakur has joined the BJP and will contest Lok Sabha elections from Bhopal.
Hindustan Times via Getty Images

Update: BJP has released a list of four candidates in Bhopal and made it official that Sadhvi Pragya Thakur will contest from Bhopal.

Malegaon blast-accused Sadhvi Pragya Thakur said on Wednesday that she has joined the BJP and is likely to contest from Bhopal in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Thakur told ANI that she was confident that she will win.

If BJP gives her a ticket from Bhopal, she will be pitted against Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh.

A contest between the two would be significant, as Thakur has alleged that Singh conspired to get her falsely accused in the 2008 bomb blasts in Maharashtra’s Malegaon.

Speaking to Aaj Tak’s Aapki Adalat, she had said she was tortured during her stay in prison. She said, “I call Digvijaya Singh ‘dikbhramit’ because his direction is never right. He conspired against over personal vendetta.”

She also blamed the UPA government for “conspiring” against her. She also said that Singh used the ATS to conspire against her.

After she got bail in 2017, her family had also accused Singh and said they want to see him in jail.

Thakur’s sister Upama Singh had told Mail Today:

“My sister was called what not: from a terrorist to someone who feigned sainthood as she wanted to marry someone; that she had an affair. For us who have known this devout soul from when she was a child, these words fell as molten iron in the ears. While she is a religious mind and she has forgiven her tormentors, we are common people and we have been pained so much that we want to sue Digvijaya Singh and those news channels that assassinated her character for vested interests. I want to teach them a life lesson so that they cannot do this to anyone else in future.”

Though the motorcycle used in the blast was owned by her, according to one of the witnesses, it was in the possession of Ramchandra Kalsangra, an absconding accused, she had said.

Some of the witnesses, whose statements were used to implicate her, later retracted and filed complaints of torture by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), her plea said.

Earlier, the central agency, in its charge sheet filed on 13 May, had dropped all the charges against Pragya and five others, citing lack of evidence.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had given Thakur a clean chit in 2016 by dropping her name from the chargesheet in the Malegaon case.

Eight persons were killed and nearly 80 were injured when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle had exploded in Malegaon on 29 September 2008.

Thakur was arrested the same year.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.