Relations soured after the 2018 Rajya Sabha elections.
Breaking the political trend, the Samajwadi Party has fielded a candidate against Thakur Balwan Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya after two decades in the Kunda seat of Pratapgarh. The SP is contesting from this seat following a deterioration in relations between six-time independent MLA Mr Singh and SP president Akhilesh Yadav after the 2017 election.
In 2018, as he prepared to take on the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Mr. Yadav was left red-faced after Mr. Singh, who until then was considered a political ally, was reportedly left behind by the BJP. was cross voted in favor of. Rajya Sabha elections. An angry Mr Yadav, in whose government Mr Singh enjoyed ministerial posts, called the MLA a “liar” and a “one”. Threatened”(intimidating) and said that the SP has closed its doors on him forever.
In the 2007, 2012 and 2017 elections, Mr Singh did not face any SP candidate, winning comfortably. While challenging him in Kunda, considered his fiefdom, is still an uphill task, SP’s move to pit former nagar panchayat president and Mr Singh’s former aide Gulshan Yadav against him may change some equations in the constituency.
The last time the SP fielded a candidate against Mr Singh was in 2002. Mr Singh got 82% of the votes (88,446), while the SP came second with 6,788.
In 2017, when the BJP and its allies won 325 of the 403 seats in UP, Mr Singh and his close aide Vinod Saroj won as independents in Kunda and Babaganj in Pratapgarh.
once labeled as “swivel”KagundaBy opponents, Mr Singh enjoyed the goodwill of the SP and BJP as ministerial posts under the governments of Kalyan Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta, Rajnath Singh, Mulayam Singh and Akhilesh Yadav, despite being an independent legislator.
During the Akhilesh Yadav-led government, he had to resign from the cabinet in the wake of allegations related to the murder of DSP Zia-ul-Haqeen in 2013. However, he was soon inducted again after the CBI gave him a clean chit. Interestingly, the name of Mr. Gulshan Yadav had also cropped up in the case.
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