BJP drops Brij Bhushan from UP’s Kaiserganj, gives ticket to his son

On Thursday, May 2nd, 2024, The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dropped former wrestling federation chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and denied the Kaiserganj MP renomination in Uttar Pradesh from the seat and fielded his younger son Karan Bhushan in his place.

This decision arose from the development that evoked a sharp reaction from women wrestlers who accused Brij Bhushan of sexual harassment and held mass protests through 2023 to secure justice, facing heavy condemnation from opposition parties and top athletes.

Importantly, the ruling party put an end to the suspense by appointing Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s younger son Karan from Kaiserganj in his place. Brij Bhushan is associated with the sexual exploitation of female wrestlers while serving as the chairman of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI).

As soon as the BJP made the news, fans at Singh’s Gonda house began handing out candy and yelling chants in his favour. “Yes, my son has got the ticket,” he told the media in Kaiserganj. “Kya karein, dabdaba toh hai, woh toh Bhagwan ka diya hua hai (what can I do, the clout and political heft is god-gifted),” he said when asked if the ticket meant that he would continue to wield clout.

In a video on social media, Karan was seen touching the feet of his father, who was seated amid a sea of supporters at home. “I am thankful to the party leadership and the public that they have given me an opportunity to serve the people here,” he told the media.

Having served the Gonda, Balrampur, and Kaiserganj seats for six terms as an MP, Singh won his 2019 election with over 260,000 votes. However, he was the subject of claims of sexual assault two years ago from some of India’s best wrestlers, including twice World Championship winner Vinesh Phogat, bronze medalist Bajrang Punia from the Tokyo Olympics, and bronze medallist Sakshi Malik from the Rio Olympics.

“The daughters of the country lost, Brij Bhushan won,” said Malik on X. “We all put our careers at stake, slept on the streets for many days in sun and rain. Till date, Brij Bhushan has not been arrested. We were not demanding anything, we were only demanding justice. Leave the arrest. Today, by giving a ticket to his son, you have broken the morale of crores of daughters of the country. If the ticket goes to only one family, is the country’s government so weak in front of one man? Are only votes are needed in the name of Lord Shri Ram? What about the path shown by him?” she questioned.

Bajrang Punia, meanwhile, described the decision as the “country’s misfortune”. According to the statement, the BJP decided to put its faith in the political heavyweight despite the nationwide indignation that erupted last year and the possible consequences of the choice in Haryana, which holds elections later this year.

Singh is charged under sections 354 (assault or criminal force with intent to insult modesty), 354A (sexual harassment), and 354D (stalking) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), along with another accused, suspended assistant secretary of WFI, Vinod Tomar. In its 1,500-page charge sheet from last year, Delhi Police used technical and supporting evidence—such as witness interviews and photos—to demonstrate that former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chairman Singh had sexually harassed some of the country’s best wrestlers.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, “Just when we thought that the Prajwal Revanna scandal had exposed the depths of the BJP’s depravity, they show that there are always new lows for them to fall to. They have now rewarded Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, accused of sexual harassment by many of our women wrestlers, with a ticket for his son. This is a party with no moral compass, led by a man whose only anchor is his desire for boundless power,” Ramesh said in a post on X, referring to a sexual abuse case against Prajwal Revanna, a leader of JD(S), a BJP ally in the ongoing elections.

In a post on X in Hindi, Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said, “Father Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s ticket to his son. Do you talk of giving justice to women like this?”

The party has nominated Dinesh Pratap Singh, who is presently an Uttar Pradesh minister in the Yogi Adityanath ministry, to run for office from Raebareli a second time, a pocket borough of the Congress, which has not yet determined if a member of the Gandhi family would run for the seat that Sonia Gandhi won in four elections in a row between 2004 and 2019.

This struggle in Rae Bareli has proven to be extremely important for the Congress party since Sonia Gandhi has opted to stay in Parliament by going through the Rajya Sabha route in Rajasthan, citing health reasons for her withdrawal from electoral politics.

The sources claim that the BJP relied on Dinesh Pratap Singh’s local relationships with grassroots activists, especially in Rae Bareli at the gramme and block levels. Prior to joining the BJP in September 2018, Dinesh Pratap served as the Gandhi family’s chief strategist for the Rae Bareli elections.

Dinesh Pratap Singh was appointed an MLC and a minister in the Yogi cabinet 2.0 in 2022, following his defeat by Sonia Gandhi in the 2019 election. According to sources, Dinesh Pratap Singh had already started working and had been interacting with various sectors of the constituency for a few days in preparation for getting the ticket.

With the addition of Brij Bhushan, the BJP now has 15 MPs in Uttar Pradesh on its bench for the subsequent election. Singh is a six-time Member of Parliament who has won in Kaiserganj (2009, 2014, and 2019) as well as other seats like Gonda (in 1991 and 1999) and Balrampur (in 2004). He has considerable sway over six Lok Sabha constituencies in the Gonda region in central Uttar Pradesh.

He is a powerful man in Kaiserganj and the adjacent areas since he owns more than fifty educational establishments. Remarkably, Singh had been vigorously promoting his own campaign even as the BJP offered him the choice to field either his son Prateek, a Gonda Sadar MLA, or his wife Ketaki Singh. In 1996, Ketaki Singh served as the BJP’s Gonda MP.

In February, Karan was chosen to serve as the Uttar Pradesh Wrestling Association’s president. He was born on December 13, 1990, and holds a certificate in business management from Australia in addition to a law degree from Dr Ram Manohar Law University, Faizabad. In addition, he oversees the daily political operations of his father in Kaiserganj and serves as head of a cooperative bank in the Gonda district’s Nawabganj.

The eldest son of Singh, Prateek Bhushan Singh, is a member of the BJP representing the Gonda (Sadar) assembly seat. The nomination elicited no formal response from the BJP. With this, the BJP has announced their candidates for each of Uttar Pradesh’s 80 Lok Sabha seats.

The Samajwadi Party also withheld its selection of a candidate, which added to the tension surrounding Kaiserganj and sparked rumours that the opposition party would accommodate Singh in the event that the BJP denied him a ticket.

After being ousted by the BJP in 2008 for cross-voting in the Lok Sabha on a resolution of no-confidence, Singh joined the SP. Just before the 2014 general elections, he re-joined the BJP.

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