New Delhi: BJP president Rajnath Singh is pushing for fielding his brother-in-law Arun Singh from the Mathura parliamentary seat in the Lok Sabha elections. BJP insiders say that Singh is pushing for his relative despite BJP poster boy Narendra Modi’s reservations on his candidature.
A chartered accountant by profession, Arun Singh is a national executive member of the party. His fortunes skyrocketed after Rajnath took over as BJP chief from Nitin Gadkari. He was not only made a member of the campaign committee led by Modi, but also appointed associate in-charge of Odisha after Rajnath’s return as BJP chief.
However, his dream of contesting the Lok Sabha election from Mathura could run into rough weather as there are many claimants for the seat. As Mathura is a seat dominated by the Jats and the Brahmins, Modi wants to field yesteryears’ Dream Girl Hema Malini (she is a Brahmin and her husband, actor Dharmendra a Jat). Whereas Arun Singh is a Thakur and his caste is not as dominant as the Brahmins and the Jats.
On the other hand, Srikant Sharma, who heads BJP’s media cell and is close to Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, is staking claim for the seat, armed with the argument that he hails from Mathura.
Sources say the RSS is rooting for Devendra Sharma, who had lost the 2012 Assembly election from the Mathura seat by a thin margin. Senior RSS leader Krishna Gopal is backing Devendra on the grounds that he is a local, a Brahmin and has a RSS background.
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