Of the 195 names in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) first list of Lok Sabha (LS) candidates announced on Saturday, there was one that came as real surprise for the party’s Maharashtra unit – Mumbai leader Kripashankar Singh.
Singh has been announced as a candidate from Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur constituency. The former Congress leader has served as a state minister in-charge of the Maharashtra home department. In 2011, he was made in-charge of the Mumbai Congress to corner the Shiv Sena in the Mumbai civic body – Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
While there was no name for Maharashtra on the list, Singh’s inclusion, at a time when BJP leaders such as Dr Harsh Vardhan and Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur were dropped, sends a message that there could be more in store.
An LS aspirant from Maharashtra, while disappointed over Singh’s name, said that this could mean that “new faces will get a chance". “Singh had launched a book along with Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, ‘26/11 RSS ki Sajish’, written by Aziz Burney. Despite this, in 2021, he got an entry into the BJP, which has Hindutva as its agenda. And in 2024, he gets a ticket for the Lok Sabha from Jaunpur," he said.
HINDUTVA, CORRUPTION CHARGES
What has hurt the BJP leaders and right-wing cadre more is that Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, who was an aggressive advocate of Hindutva, was denied a ticket from Bhopal. She had defeated Congress leader Digvijaya Singh by a good margin. On the other hand, Singh, who had taken a stand against the BJP’s ideological fountainhead Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Hindutva, was awarded a Lok Sabha ticket.
Another issue against a ticket for Singh is that the BJP is strict against corruption and doesn’t allow its MPs, MLAs, leaders or ministers to indulge in malpractices. The BJP had led the attack against Singh, when he faced charges of accumulating assets disproportionate to known sources of income. Singh was even made to wait for long before being inducted into the BJP.
According to sources, a few top leaders of Maharashtra BJP were not ready to accept Singh. Singh couldn’t get any responsibility in Mumbai BJP, despite having a strong base and support of the North Indian lobby. Still, Singh, who is known to have an excellent network and connection across all parties, managed to convince the leaders of the BJP in Delhi.
Singh is not as lucky as Ashok Chavan who got a direct nomination for the Rajya Sabha after he joined the party. He was made to work in Jaunpur.
SENA ATTACK
After the BJP declared its first list of 195 candidates, Shiv Sena UBT Chief Uddhav Thackeray took a quick potshot. He questioned the move of the BJP to give the ticket to Singh before loyalist and senior leader Nitin Gadkari.
“Nitin Gadkari is a senior leader of the party, he is a loyal worker. Within record time, he constructed the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Such a person’s name was not on the first list of BJP. However, a person like Kripashankar Singh, who they alleged has disproportionate assets, made it to the first list," he said.
Comments
0 comment