Ousted MP David Duguid has said he would have won the seat lost by party leader Douglas Ross.
Mr Duguid was barred by Scottish Conservative officials from running for the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seat, citing health reasons.
Earlier this year, he suffered a spinal stroke and subsequently contracted pneumonia, telling the BBC he “flatlined” on two occasions.
But the former MP – who represented the now defunct Banff and Buchan seat since 2017 – said he would have won the contest Mr Ross lost to the SNP on July 4.
Asked in an interview with the BBC if the party made the wrong decision in barring him from standing, Mr Duguid said: “Evidently – we lost the seat.
“I think I would have won it.
“The last official communication I had with the party when they came to visit me that last time, I didn’t know Douglas was going to be the candidate.”
He went on to say he “had the incumbency” and constituents “knew me, and I’m a half decent MP or a fully decent MP”.
He added: “I thought any new candidate was not going to have that incumbency, which may not be worth that many votes, but it could have made a difference between winning or losing.”
The decision of Mr Ross to step into the seat in the days before nominations closed, Mr Duguid said, made the situation “even worse”.
Within days of the decision to stand again for Westminster, Mr Ross announced he would step down as party leader after the election and would quit as an MSP if he won the contest.
Mr Ross lost the seat to the SNP’s Seamus Logan by less than 1,000 votes.
