Lucknow, Dec 25 (Inditop.com) Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh will declare the formation of a new party on Jan 5, his birthday, the leader said.
Disclosing this in an informal chat with mediapersons, Kalyan Singh said: “I have finally made up my mind to form my own party.”
He said: “The details were being worked out and we will soon submit all necessary documents for registration of the party with the Election Commission.”
Kalyan Singh is a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) turncoat, who has switched sides at least twice over the past decade.
Certain observations made by the new BJP president Nitin Gadkari initially indicated that the new leadership of the party would create room for estranged leaders. However, no sooner than Gadkari assumed formal control of the top position, things seemed to change.
What was held out against Kalyan were his extremely rude references to party veterans and his close affiliation with BJP’s sworn adversary Mulayam Singh.
On both past occasions that he walked out of the party, Kalyan Singh chose to shake hands with Mulayam Singh.
In 1999, when he broke away from BJP for the first time, Kalyan Singh floated the Rashtriya Kranti Party (RKP).
For some time, he worked in tandem with Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party. But he returned to the BJP fold just before the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.
Contrary to his tall claims, he failed to make any difference to BJP’s political destiny.
Again in January 2009, he marched out of the BJP.
But this time, instead of forming any independent party, he went the whole hog to push the Samajwadi Party. Even as he did not formally join the party, he got his son Rajvir Singh inducted into Samajwadi Party, while he decided to campaign hand-in-hand with Mulayam Singh.
Mulayam Singh was led to believe that Kalyan Singh’s company would help him to build a new backward castes axis in Uttar Pradesh.
However, the 2009 Lok sabha elections belied all his hopes and expectations.
It was not before long that Mulayam Singh realized how his handshake with Kalyan Singh had cost him his Muslim support base.
While it was Kalyan Singh who had wished Mulayam Singh away in 2004, this time it was the latter’s turn to leave Kalyan who was left high and dry.
Apparently, in the hope of making a re-entry into the saffron fold, a desperate Kalyan Singh left no stone unturned to once again try and project himself as a hardcore Hindutva torch-bearer.
But once bitten twice shy BJP leaders from Uttar Pradesh moved heaven and earth to convince the new party high command that Kalyan Singh was a spent force and in any case could not be relied upon after he had ditched the party twice.
“We made it loud and clear to the new party chief that Kalyan’s return to the BJP fold would only serve his own purpose of getting his son Rajvir and close confidante Kusum Rai well entrenched in the party once again. It would not do any good to the party,” a BJP veteran said on the condition of anonymity.
He also vehemently scotched rumours that the new BJP leadership had sent feelers to Kalyan Singh for his return.
“No one sent him any feelers to re-join the party, no wonder Kalyan is busy looking for new pastures,” he added.
