Who is Dinesh Pratap Singh, BJP's candidate from Rae Bareli, the Gandhi bastion?

The BJP has fielded Dinesh Pratap Singh as its candidate from Rae Bareli.

Rae Bareli is the Congress bastion from which Sonia Gandhi has won five straight times. The Congress has not yet announced its candidate for the seat which is set to go to the polls on 20 May.

News18 quoted Singh as saying, “I would like to thank PM Modi, Amit shah, JP Nadda and people support…. I am not born in Gandhi family and know hard work….not born with silver spoon. ‘Nakli gandhi ki vidai hogi’ (fake Gandhi will be given a farewell)….whoever will come here from Congress will lose…..I have fought against Sonia also, PG and RG not important for me.”

The Congress is yet to announce its candidate for the seat which is set to go to the polls on 20 May.

But who is Singh? What do we know about him?

Let’s take a closer look:

According to Free Press Journal, Singh hails from the Thakur community. He is a minister, independent charge, in the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh.

Singh took the dive into politics with the Congress.  He began his political career as a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) in 2010.

He later won a second term in 2016.

Singh was once considered close to Rahul, Sonia and Priyanka.

But in 2017, Singh was indefinitely suspended from the Congress’ primary membership for an indefinite period.

This, after he was accused misbehaving with the general secretary of the Rae Bareli Congress committee and other local party leaders.

Singh at the time was given a suspension notice by Rae Bareli District Congress Committee president VK Shukla.

The notice accused Singh of assaulting Manoj Paswan, the then general secretary of the district Congress committee.

It also claimed he had abducted panchayat members who moved a no-confidence motion against his brother Awadhesh, a district panchayat president in Rae Bareli.

Local leaders also accused Singh and his brother Awadhesh of trying to unseat AICC general secretary and Sonia Gandhi’s constituency representative Kishori Lal Sharma.

Singh had hinted at his strained relationship with Sharma, saying that he and KL Sharma could not coexist in Rae Bareli and in Congress.

Charges of nepotism were also levelled against Singh.

In 2018, Singh joined the BJP.

Singh and his brother Rakesh quit the party after accusing the party high command of being indifferent to local leaders.

The BJP then fielded Singh from Rae Bareli in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

However, Singh lost the race to Sonia by a margin of 1.67 lakh votes, according to Business Today,

Singh got 367,740 votes with a vote share of 38.36 per cent, as per India TV.

According to Hindustan Times, Singh received the most votes of any BJP candidate in history in Rae Bareli.

Singh in 2022 became an MLC for the third time by winning with record votes on the BJP’s ticket, according to LiveHindustan.com.

All eyes on Congress

All eyes are on now on the Congress regarding the Rae Bareli seat.

With just a day left for the filing of nominations for Phase 5 of the Lok Sabha elections, the suspense continued over the Congress’ candidates for the Amethi and Rae Bareli constituencies

The Samajwadi Party (SP), which earlier announced a seat-sharing pact with the grand old party in Uttar Pradesh, told Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge that after its supremo Akhilesh Yadav’s decision to contest Kannauj, Rahul’s entry into the fray along with his sister Priyanka may bring unexpected electoral dividend to the Opposition bloc, sources said.

“Kharge told Sonia Gandhi that the party and he, himself, was in favour of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka contesting the elections (from Amethi and Rae Bareli),” the source added.

However, adding to the intrigue around the Congress’ choice of candidates for these two constituencies, sources claimed that even as Rahul and Priyanka appear reluctant to contest Amethi and Rae Bareli, Kharge insisted that at least one of them enter the fray.

At the party’s committee meeting recently, the Congress’ UP unit formally moved a proposal that members of the Gandhi family should contest the Amethi and Raibareli seats and a final decision in the matter was left to Kharge.

The Congress has not yet put out any official statement on its choice of nominees from Amethi and Rae Bareli, which were considered the party’s strongholds until the 2019 elections.

Earlier, Congress leader KL Sharma told ANI, “Today, we had a meeting in Amethi and Rae Bareli as the party is still undecided on its choice of candidates from these two constituencies. People expect someone from the Gandhi family to contest (these seats) and I, too, feel the same. Since the last date for filing nominations is May 3 (Friday), we had to rush through the preparations. Hence, two meetings were held today (in Amethi and Rae Bareli).”

Addressing reporters on Wednesday, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, “The Central Election Committee (CEC) has empowered our party president Mallikarjun Kharge to take a final call on our candidates for Amethi and Rae Bareli. I expect a formal announcement to be made in the next 24 to 30 hours.”

Rahul Gandhi contested the Lok Sabha elections from Kerala’s Wayanad, where polling took place on Friday in the second phase of the polls.

He had said earlier that he will follow “whatever order” he gets from his party.

Speculation has been rife that Rahul Gandhi might contest the Lok Sabha polls from Amethi, a seat he represented for three straight terms earlier, and Priyanka Gandhi from Rae Bareli, a seat that was previously held by her mother Sonia.

Both seats are considered bastions of the Gandhi family and the local units of the Congress have demanded that the two scions of the family contest from there.

The Congress on Monday said its Central Election Committee (CEC) has authorised party chief Mallikarjun Kharge to take the decision regarding the seat.

Asked when the candidates for the two seats would be announced and whether Gandhi family members would be fielded from there, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said, “The president has been authorised to decide the candidates. Elections are not run in a hidden manner, they are run with all paraphernalia before everyone. You will get to know when the candidates are announced.”

“In our party, such decisions are not taken by two people in (behind) closed doors, the CEC has put forward its views and with its and the president’s nod, the candidates will be decided,” she said.

Rahul won the Amethi seat in three consecutive Lok Sabha elections from 2004. BJP leader Smriti Irani wrested the seat in 2019.

Rahul, who contested from both Amethi and Wayanad in 2019, had won the elections from Wayanad.

The Congress has forged an alliance with the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and is contesting 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

The counting of votes for all seven phases of the Lok Sabha polls will be taken up on 4 June.

With inputs from agencies