Indicating that he might snap ties with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), former labour minister Badshah Singh on Monday said he would contest the assembly elections from Mahoba.
Women show their marked fingers after casting their votes during the fourth phase of West Bengal Assembly elections in Howrah.
He made the statement during an interaction with journalists here, days after he said he was retiring from active politics.
To a pointed question about switching loyalties, Singh, who chief minister Mayawati had sacked on October 5 over his indictment by lokayukta justice (retired) NK Mehrotra, refused to spell out whether he would join the BJP or the Congress.
He merely said, “I will announce my next course of action in a rally at Kharela in Mahoba on January 12” and added, “I am discussing my political strategy with confidants and supporters.”
The former minister, who had been indicted for alleged land-grabbing and diversion of the MLA local area development fund, also claimed, “I have been exonerated by the Mahoba district court of the land-grabbing charges.”
“In his petition, complainant Akhilesh Upadhahay alleged that I constructed a degree college and an inter college in my father’s memory on gram samaj land. Upadhyay also accused me of having constructed my house on government land. I moved a petition in the district court in a bid to clear my name. On December 24, the court ruled the land was my ancestral property and I had not encroached on government land,” he said.
Badashah Singh had joined the BSP before the 2007 assembly election, won the Maudaha seat and was appointed a minister in the state cabinet.