Jaunpur battle hots up as Dhananjay’s wife Shrikala throws hat in the ring

Riding high on his political and social clout, Shrikala, who is sitting Zila Panchayat chairman from Jaunpur, is up against two seasoned politicians

The battle for Jaunpur Lok Sabha seat has taken an interesting turn with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) reviving the Dhananjay Singh factor.

Dhananjay Singh’s wife Shrikala is a BSP candidate from Jaunpur (File)

Despite his recent sentencing by MP/MLA court to seven years in prison, the BSP has placed its faith in his local popularity, nominating his wife Shrikala Dhananjay Singh nee Shrikala Reddy as its candidate from Jaunpur for the 2024 general elections.

Dhananjay Singh has been two-term MLA --from Jaunpur’s Rari assembly seat as an independent and as Janata Dal United candidate from Malhani assembly seat in 2002 and 2007 respectively. He also remained MP between 2009 and 2014 on BSP ticket.

Shrikala hails from a prominent business family in Telangana and the only daughter of the owners of the Nippon battery group.

Married to Dhananjay Singh in 2017 after his two previous marriages, Shrikala has been actively involved in politics in Jaunpur for the past three years. She ascended to the position of Zila Panchayat chairman in 2021. Notably, her late father, Jitendra Reddy, had a political background, having served as chairman of the Cooperative in Nalgonda and as an independent MLA from Huzur Nagar assembly seat of Nalgonda.

Shrikala now faces formidable opponents in the upcoming elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded Kripa Shankar Singh, a former Congress home minister of Maharashtra, while the Samajwadi Party has nominated Babu Singh Kushwaha, a former minister in the BSP government.

Interestingly, both Singh and Kushwaha have played mentorship roles in Dhananjay Singh’s political journey.

Kripa Shankar Singh, who quit the Congress in 2019 and joined BJP in 2021, is said to have provided patronage to Dhananjay Singh during his initial days while Kushwaha helped him to get MP ticket from BSP.

Initially eyeing the Jaunpur seat under the JD (U) banner, Dhananjay Singh shifted allegiance to the Samajwadi Party after Kripa Shankar Singh’s BJP candidacy. However, his plans were disrupted by the court’s verdict, sentencing him and his associate Santosh Vikram Singh in a kidnapping and extortion of the Namami Gange project manager, Abhinav Singhal, in 2020.

Despite setbacks, the decision to nominate Shrikala underscores the BSP’s strategy to capitalise on Dhananjay Singh’s strong influence in Jaunpur. The stage is now set for a close electoral showdown, where family ties, political alliances, and legal cases will play out in the quest for power.