Congress suspends Rae Bareli MLC

LUCKNOW: The Congress has suspended its MLC Dinesh Pratap Singh four days after the BJP supported no-confidence motion moved against his brother and district panchayat president Awadhesh Singh fell through in district panchayat of Rae Bareli the Lok Sabha seat of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

District Congress Committee (DCC) Rae Bareli president VK Shukla in a letter sent to Singh said “Action against you has been taken following directives of party high command.”

Shukla in his letter also said soon after the no-confidence motion fell, Singh took party supported district panchayat members to his residence and beat them. Those beaten included DCC Rae Bareli general secretary Manoj Paswan, he said.The Congress leaders are meanwhile keeping a close watch over the developments in the party in Rae Bareli. Singh’s suspension is being viewed in the backdrop of reports that the BJP apparently did not work hard to get the no-confidence motion against his brother passed for larger gains in Rae Bareli. The BJP had reportedly sent feelers to the Congress and Samajwadi Party leaders of Rae Bareli to get one out of five assembly seats vacated for deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya.

Maurya is a Lok Sabha MP and has to get elected to either of two houses of state legislature within within six month from March 19 when he took oath as deputy chief minister of UP. Senior Congress leaders said they had information that some BJP leaders from Lucknow had met partymen of Rae Bareli in the past few days and efforts were being made to get a seat vacated for Maurya in the district. The BJP obviously wants to replicate Rajnath Singh who after becoming chief minister got elected to the state assembly from Haidergarh seat vacated by a Congress MLA.