Rewa, Sep 18 : The Madhya Pradesh Congress on Wednesday observed the 100th birth anniversary of former Assembly Speaker (late) Srinivas Tiwari during an event organised in Rewa district.

Senior Congress leaders, including former CM Digvijaya Singh, party state president Jitu Patwari, LoP Umang Singhar, ex-LoP Ajay Singh and several legislators and former ministers, attend the event.

On this occasion, a life-size statue of Srinivas Tiwari was unveiled in the city, and the Congress leaders shared their views about ex-Speaker, whom his supporters used to call 'dada' or 'white tiger' of Rewa.

There has been a tug-of-war between BJP and Congress over installing Tiwari's statue in Rewa which however, resolved at a day before the event was organised, and it was finally unveiled.

The resolution of the dispute comes after days of tension, with police earlier stalling the pedestal construction citing the land as their property.

Armed personnel were even deployed at the site. Interestingly, Srinivas Tiwari's grandson and ex-MP (late) Sundarlal Tiwari's son Siddharth Tiwari is a BJP MLA from Rewa's Teonthar Assembly seat.

Siddharth had shifted into the BJP ahead of the Assembly elections 2023. Addressing the gathering of Congress workers on this occasion, Jitu Patwari said: "Srinivas Tiwari and his son and ex-MP Sundarlal Tiwari were strong leaders of Congress, and they never compromised with the party's ideology."

Srinivas Tiwari, who was borne on September 17, 1926 in Rewa district, was the Assembly Speaker during Digvijaya Singh-led Congress government between 1993 and 2003.

He ruled in Rewa and in fact in entire Vindhya region in his own way. There have been several controversies related with him including mysterious death of a tribal child, but the appointment of 36 members of family and relatives in the state government jobs had granted the national headlines.

Tiwari's political career ended after he lost against BJP's Girish Gautam in 2003 from Mangavan Assembly seat. Gautam, a senior most sitting BJP MLA from Devtalab seat, has also previously served as the Assembly speaker during the last tenure of ex-CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Tiwari died at the age of 91 at a hospital in New Delhi in 2018. After his death, Congress gradually lost its ground in Rewa, once used to party's strong base.

In 2023 Assembly elections, Congress could win only one out of eight seats in the district - bordering Uttar Pradesh's Mirzapur-Varanasi and Prayagraj (previously known as Allahabad).

/IANS