Bhopal: There is a distinction between the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) phrases and deeds, Ajay Pratap Singh informed ThePrint, barely 24 hours after he resigned from main membership of the get together.
Singh, whose tenure as a Rajya Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh is because of finish on 2 April, turned heads Saturday when he parted methods with the BJP and alleged that “corruption” was prevalent throughout the get together and that politics had change into a “means for trade”.
“When I joined the BJP as a student leader, veteran Congress leader Arjun Singh was the chief minister and his house was right opposite mine in Sidhi’s Churhat and yet, I chose to work for the BJP and struggled for the party as I believed that this party is the means to bring about a positive change in the society. Had it been that politics was a means to serve oneself, I would have gone with the Congress,” he informed ThePrint Sunday.
Asked if he was trying to make the transfer from the Upper House to the Lower House of Parliament, he added, “Everyone has political ambitions and seeks a ticket, even if I was seeking it, what is wrong about it? I have no problems with the party fielding Dr Rajesh Mishra, but the parameters announced by a party to select candidates and the way they are being selected are vastly different. BJP ki kathni aur karni mein antar hai.”
Sources within the BJP mentioned Ajay Pratap Singh was searching for a ticket to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from Sidhi — part of MP’s Vindhya area the place Thakurs and Brahmins are identified to wield political clout. Sidhi can be residence to a major tribal and OBC inhabitants.
Given the caste equations in Sidhi, BJP has historically fielded a Brahmin candidate right here to counter the affect of Congress’s Ajay Singh, five-time MLA from Churhat and son of former chief minister Arjun Singh. Ajay Pratap Singh who was then with the BJP had unsuccessfully contested the 2008 meeting polls from Churhat in opposition to Ajay Singh.
This time round, the BJP has fielded Rajesh Mishra from the Sidhi Lok Sabha seat. The resolution got here as a shock for a lot of, on condition that he had resigned from all get together posts within the run-up to the meeting elections final yr after the BJP picked its sitting MP from Sidhi, Riti Pathak, because the candidate from Sidhi. Mishra had unsuccessfully contested the 2008 meeting polls from Sidhi on a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket.
Mishra is now up in opposition to Kamleshwar Patel, a minister within the Kamal Nath authorities who was inducted into the Congress Working Committee (CWC) final August. With Patel’s candidature the get together is trying to court docket the OBC vote financial institution, mentioned sources within the Congress.
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Who is Ajay Pratap Singh
In dialog with ThePrint Sunday, Ajay Pratap Singh mentioned the BJP ought to have thought-about a “core” and “committed” get together employee to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Sidhi if it was trying to subject a Brahmin face in keeping with caste and regional equations.
Asked if he would contemplate contesting the Lok Sabha polls as an Independent, he responded: “I’m consulting the people in my region as it is a large constituency and I will need support from all to contest the election.”
“If I had self-interest in mind, I would have chosen to remain with the BJP, thinking that merely being identified as a senior leader of the BJP would do me good. But that was not the intention,” he added.
Ajay Pratap Singh’s household was thought-about near Kushabhau Thakre, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak who grew to become among the many most outstanding leaders of the Jana Sangh and later the BJP, serving as its nationwide president from 1998 to 2000.
As for Ajay Pratap Singh, he was seen as an ardent supporter of former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan since his Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) days.
Ajay Pratap Singh has additionally served as basic secretary and vice-president of the MP BJP. During Chouhan’s second time period as chief minister, he was appointed chairman of Vindhya Development Authority. The BJP later nominated him to the Rajya Sabha in 2018.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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