Former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh has announced that he would contest from Etah in the next Lok Sabha elections. Although he has not officially joined the BJP to avoid disqualification from the Lok Sabha where he is currently an Independent MP he has to resign from the membership of the House to be inducted to the party his announcement comes even as the BJP is yet to announce a single candidate for the Lok Sabha elections. BJP national president Rajnath Singh and state president Laxmikant Bajpai have repeatedly stated that the decision on candidates would be taken by the partys Central Parliamentary Board after getting approval from the central election committee and the state election committee. But this not deter Kalyan from announcing on Saturday that he would contest from Etah from where he had won by a margin of 1.28 lakh votes in 2009 general elections with the support of Samajwadi Party. While Kalyan Singh was not available for comment,his son and state BJP vice-president Rajvir Singh said,He will contest if BJP will give him the ticket. In view of the preparations for the Lok Sabha elections,Rajvir has taken a new house in Etah for his father,who had been so far residing in his home district Aligarh. People and party workers had to go to Aligarh to meet Babuji (Kalyan). Now he has taken a house here in Etah so that people can meet him easily, said a BJP leader. Rajvir was present at the meeting of partys state office-bearers held on April 10 when the state leaders had decided to send 23 teams to all the 80 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state to collect feedback about prospective candidates. The panel of names collected by these teams will be sent to partys central election committee in May. Rajvir said that neither he nor his wife Premlata would contest the Lok Sabha election. Rajvir had lost from Debai in Bulandshahr district,while Premlata too was defeated from Atrauli in Aligarh district in the 2012 Assembly elections in which they contested as the candidates of Kalyan Singhs Jankranti Party (Rashtrawadi),which has since merged with the BJP. BJPs Etah district president Pankaj Gupta was supportive of Kalyan Singhs candidature. In the last Lok Sabha polls,BJPs nominee Shyam Singh Shakya had come a poor third. Kalyanji has announced to contest election from the Etah because he had won the election here by a huge margin in 2009,and will win from here again, Gupta said. Kalyan Singh had defeated BSPs Devendra Singh Yadav. Now,Yadav has joined Samajwadi Party and has been nominated by the party to contest from Etah again. Interestingly,two days ago,there were reports that former Madhya Pradesh CM Uma Bharti will contest from UPs Amroha constituency.
