Swati Singh, the wife of expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Daya Shnkar Pandey, who has been arrested by police for making derogatory remarks on Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati, on Friday, chosen as the head of Women’s Wing of the party in the state.
The BJP has been promoting Ms. Singh, after few BSP members used derogatory remarks and sexist references on her and her daughter. The party has been promoting the issue to counter Daya Shankar Pandey’s remarks on Mayawati, which resulted into the polarization as the Dalits supporting BSP and BJP trying to reach to the upper caste community, especially Thakurs.
However, rejecting that party is trying to cash in on the incident by promoting Swati Singh, BJP State General Secretary, Vijay Bhadur Pathak has been quoted by a leading daily as saying, “What does Swati Singh have to do with it? The issues are separate. She is an active woman and her mandate is to increase work in the mahila morcha.”
The party’s State President Keshav Prasad Maurya, announced the new elected chiefs of other morchas in UP. Member of Parliament (MP) from Mohanlalganj and Dalit leader Kaushal Kishore is the new Scheduled Caste morcha U.P. chief, while MP from Robertsganj Chote Lal Kharwar will head the Scheduled Tribes morcha . Mr. Kishore is a Pasi, the second largest Dalit community in U.P., which the BJP wants to tap in to to neutralise the stranglehold of the BSP over the Jatav community. The BJP’s U.P. minority wing president Haider Abbas Chand was chosen from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, Varanasi.
By Prajakt K.
