In Raebareli, BJP renominates minister who reduced Sonia win margin last time

Then in 2018, months before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he left the Congress to join the BJP that fielded him against Sonia. While the former Congress president was the only party candidate to win from UP, Singh gave her a strong fight and was able to reduce her victory margin drastically, putting in the best-ever performance by a BJP candidate from the constituency.

As a result of his strong showing in 2019, not only did the BJP send Singh again to the Upper House of the UP legislature in 2022, but when the Yogi Adityanath-led government returned to power later that year he was made a MoS (independent charge) for Horticulture, Agriculture Marketing, Agriculture Foreign Trade and Agriculture Export. He still holds these portfolios.

Since then, there has been some resentment against Singh within the BJP, a reason why he was not confident of getting the ticket this year. So when his name was finally announced on Thursday afternoon, Singh thanked the BJP leadership for reposing their faith in him and assured them that he would rather die than break this trust. Singh declared that he would uproot the “fake Gandhis” from Raebareli.