Son's 'uncertain political future' may push Kalyan towards BJP

Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and one time powerful saffron leader Kalyan Singh is reportedly considering yet another comeback to the BJP.

According to the sources within the state,  BJP and Singh's Jan Kranti Party, there is a strong possibility of Kalyan Singh's return to the saffron party in ‘very near future’.

The rumors of Singh's return had been making rounds in the political circles for the past few days. And unlike before, neither the BJP nor the Jankranti Party leaders chose to openly deny them.

Kalyan himself, who earlier said that there was no question of his return  to  the BJP,  refuses to comment on the same now.

“I will not say anything at this moment,” was all he said when asked about the speculations.

According to sources, Singh will convene a meeting of Jan Kranti Party leaders on October 5 in which a decision about his future course of action might be announced.

“Singh will try to gauge the feelings of the party leaders before announcing his decision,” sources said.

“Kalyan Singh has played his innings...he now wants to secure the political future of his son Rajveer, who continues to be in political wilderness,” said sources close to Kalyan Singh.

Rajveer had lost the assembly polls from his home turf of Atrauli in Aligarh district. “The defeat has put a question mark over Rajveer's political future,”  sources said. His party could not win a single seat in the polls.

Sources said that there was a section in the BJP also, which favours Singh's return to the party.

“At present,  BJP does not have a leader, who has a statewide acceptability...Kalyan can easily fill the gap...he also has good support among the powerful lodh community voters,” they point out. Aligarh, Mainpuri, Farrukhabad and Etah districts have sizable number of ‘lodh’ voters.

Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti, herself a lodh, is reported to be pushing for Singh's return.

Singh, an old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker, left the BJP first in 1999 but returned in 2004 just before the Parliamentary elections.

He again left the party  in 2009 citing humiliation by the party. He then joined hands with his arch rival and Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and even shunned his ‘hardline hindutva’ ideology in an attempt to project himself as a ‘secular’ leader. But the experiment proved to be a huge failure and prompted Mulayam to sever all  ties with him.