FOUNDER PRESIDENT of the Bajrang Dal, Vinay Katiyar, today filed his nomination papers for the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha by-election at the Rae Bareli collectorate amidst slogan-shouting.
Senior party leaders, including Pramod Mahajan, Kalyan Singh, Lalji Tandon, Keshari Nath Tripathi besides others accompanied Katiyar, the so-called ‘sacrificial goat’ of the BJP, in a procession which started from the local BJP office there before reaching the collectorate, to file papers.
A public meeting scheduled to be addressed by the BJP leaders at the Shaheed Park after the nomination had to be postponed following ongoing examination at the Firoz Gandhi Degree College.
Katiyar submitted four sets of papers and his name was proposed by Ajai Pal Singh, Raja Rakesh Pratap Singh, Girish Narain Pandey and Rajaram Tyagi.
It was a lackluster exercise, mainly due to minimal local response, including that from the Rae Bareli unit of the party. Katiyar was sure to lose and he would be contesting for third or fourth position, commented a local BJP worker.
However, Vinay Katiyar, who started his political career with and played a key role in the Ram Janmbhumi agitation, is a ‘crorepati’ now.
According to properties shown by him in the nomination papers, Katiyar has Rs 50,000 cash with him and has deposits worth Rs 16.36 lakh. He also has sharers in family properties of cold storage and rice mill worth Rs 312.83 lakh and owns properties worth Rs 13.05 lakh in Kanpur and worth Rs 66 lakh in Ayodhya and Lucknow. Katiyar has taken a loan of Rs 14.75 lakh from the UPFC.
{{/usCountry}}According to properties shown by him in the nomination papers, Katiyar has Rs 50,000 cash with him and has deposits worth Rs 16.36 lakh. He also has sharers in family properties of cold storage and rice mill worth Rs 312.83 lakh and owns properties worth Rs 13.05 lakh in Kanpur and worth Rs 66 lakh in Ayodhya and Lucknow. Katiyar has taken a loan of Rs 14.75 lakh from the UPFC.
{{/usCountry}}Soon after filing the nomination, BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan reminded that the BJP nominees had won the Rae Bareli seat in 1996 and 1998, expressing confidence of some surprising result in this election too.
Mahajan said that the BJP would raise the issue of Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin, deplorable performance of the UPA government, national security, increasing terrorism and achievements of the former NDA government.