LUCKNOW: Senior Congress leader and former Union minister Tuesday Ratanjit Pratap Narain Singh joined the BJP, a development that is bound to give fresh impetus to the saffron party OBC outreach in the poll-bound Uttar Pradesh.
She joins a long list of prominent Congress leaders, including former Union minister Jitin Prasada, who has quit the party to join BJP in the run-up to state elections.
Singh, who submitted his resignation to Congress on Tuesday, joined the party saffron in the presence of Union ministers and party election UP in charge Dharmendra Pradhan, co-responsible Anurag Thakur, UP BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh and two deputy CM Keshav Maurya and Dinesh Shamra in Delhi.
Another Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who quit the Congress in 2020, was also present at the occasion.
Branding Congress as the party had “lost its way”, Singh, who belongs to Sainthwar sub-caste, categorically praising Narendra Modi government at the central government and Yogi Adityanath in UP to put the country and the state on a high growth trajectory.
“I’m in charge of Congress for 32 years.
But it’s not the same party beforehand …,” he said.
Singh said that he was ‘advised’ for a long time to switch over to the BJP, but ‘better late than never’.
He also tweeted that he was ready to “build the nation” under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, BJP national president JP nadda and home minister Amit Shah.
Sources said that Singh was constantly in touch with the party’s leadership for Crossover program, although Congress makes it one of the star campaigners for the first phase of UP elections on Monday.
Singh captures second most important BJP from the Congress camp after Jitin Prasada, a Brahmin, who joined turmeric crease in June last year.
Like the NDP, Prasada also a Union minister in the UPA government led by Congress earlier.
BJP Prasada directed to the legislative assembly before giving him a bedside cabinet in the government of Yogi Adityanath in September.
Derived from the royal family Sainthwar Padrauna in Kushinagar district, Singh, 58, has three times MLA from Padrauna – 1996, 2002 and 2007.
Saithwar is land ownership OBC sub-castes, and the equivalent of Kurmis, with a large enough population in eastern UP, especially around Kushinagar and Basti.
Her father, Kunwar Singh CPN also two times MP from Padrauna.
the possibility of induction in BJP is seen as a move that sharply parties to consolidate the non-Yadav OBC in the UP East, especially after a number of leaders retreat including Maurya, Dara Singh Chauhan and Dharam Singh Saini turned rebelled against BJP and switch to the SP which has been positioning as a rival the most potent of the saffron outfit.
Considered close to former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Singh is also in charge of party affairs Jharkhand.
BJP’s defection to be learned has catalyzed by Scindia, who defected to the saffron camp in March 2020, less than a year after he suffered a defeat in the seat of traditional Guna in Madhya Pradesh in 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
In June 2020, Scindia got elected to the Rajya Sabha as BJP candidate.
Speculation is rife that Singh may be given a ticket to the Rajya Sabha, while flagging him as a key face in the area of ​​eastern UP.
However, the possibility of him being fielded from his traditional seat Padrauna also can not be ruled out.
Swami Prasad Maurya has represented this constituency for the last three elections.
Maurya won the seat for the first time in the bypoll held after Singh became an MP in 2009.
Singh has not contested the assembly polls since then.
Interestingly, in the Lok Sabha elections of 2009, he defeated Swami Prasad Maurya, then in the BSP.
Singh was appointed as minister of Arab countries to the road, transport and highways in the Congress-led UPA government.
On January 18, 2011, its distribution is converted into petroleum, natural gas and corporate affairs.
He then got a junior minister in the service charges of the house.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP Rakesh Pandey NDP defeated by a margin of nearly 86,000 people.
its electoral fortunes took a severe setback in 2019 when he got relegated to the third position pocketed about 14% of the people behind the BJP’s Vijay Dubey (winner) and supported by the SP candidate Nathuni BSP- Prasad Kushwaha.