Shah, Yogi to hold rally in Sonia’s Rae Bareli

LUCKNOW: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah will lead a high- powered party delegation, including chief minister Yogi Adityanath, to the Congress bastion of Rae Bareli for a rally on Saturday, party leaders said. Their visit is scheduled just a few days after Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s Rae Bareli tour on Wednesday. Rae Bareli is Sonia Gandhi’s Lok Sabha constituency.

Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma and several ministers of the Modi and the Yogi governments will accompany Shah and Adityanath to Rae Bareli. That is not all. The BJP has, after much deliberation, also cleared the joining of Congress MLC Dinesh Pratap Singh and his two brothers Rakesh Singh and Awadesh Singh, BJP leaders confirmed. The move is aimed at rattling the Congress top leadership, they said. After Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, the Singh brothers are the only elected representatives of the party in the region.

Rakesh Singh is the MLA from Harchandpur assembly segment of Rae Bareli. Awadhesh is chairman of the Rae Bareli Zila Panchayat. Dinesh is a Congress MLC from the local body quota, the voters of which comprise both Rae Bareli and parts of Amethi Lok Sabha constituencies.

The Singhs had their own compulsions in joining the party, BJP leaders said. One such compulsion is to stave off a likely no confidence motion against Awadhesh, he added. HT had first reported that the BJP had cleared the joining of the three elected public representatives of the Congress in Rae Bareli.

“It’s true that we are no longer with the Congress. However, we haven’t yet decided where we are headed to. We will collect feedback from the people who have always loved us before we take a final decision,” Dinesh had told HT on phone.

“What we have heard is that the Singhs want some commitment from the BJP leadership. We aren’t aware of the exact talks between them and our leadership but if the party has decided to admit them, it would have considered all aspects,” a party leader said.

“Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the joining of the three brothers into the BJP will definitely help build the perception that elected members of the Congress in Rae Bareli and Amethi have joined the BJP. It will give us a psychological edge ahead of the 2019 LS elections,” a BJP leader said.

The BJP is likely to repeat Smriti Irani who had cut into Rahul’s victory margin in 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Amethi. From Rae Bareli, the BJP had fielded SC lawyer Ajay Aggarwal who is again active in the area.However, BJP leaders say that the party will decide the candidature in Rae Bareli depending on the Congress move.

Last week, there were some protests outside the BJP office in Lucknow against the likely joining of Singh. The protests then were timed with Amit Shah’s arrival in the state capital on April 11. The expected joining didn’t happen then. But on April 10 – a day before Shah arrived in Lucknow - Dinesh Singh had announced his decision to sever ties from the Congress.

His younger brothers – Rakesh and Awadhesh — had announced that Panchvati – their home – no longer belonged to the Congress, giving a hint of their likely move.