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Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Former UP royals again in poll fray to defend political legacies
A number of former royals, including Ratna Singh from Pratapgarh, RPN Singh from Kushinagar and Kirtivardhan Singh from Gonda, are contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh.
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Royalty may have been abolished in independent India but the scions of former princely families continue to rule, directly or indirectly, in their regions through politics.
A number of former royals, including Ratna Singh from Pratapgarh, RPN Singh from Kushinagar and Kirtivardhan Singh from Gonda, are contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in UP. There are others like six-time MLA from Kunda seat of Pratapgarh, Raghuraj Pratap Singh aka Raja Bhaiyya, who themselves are not in the fray but are actively backing candidates.
“Raghuraj has fielded a number of candidates from his newly-formed Jansatta Dal. Similarly, Rajya Sabha members Sanjay Sinh and his wife Amita Sinh of Amethi are managing the affairs for Congress president Rahul Gandhi,” said political analyst Prof MP Dube.
Ratna Singh, a three-time Congress MP from Pratapgarh, is again in the poll arena to regain her former seat. In 2014, the seat had gone to Kunwar Harivansh Singh of the Apna Dal.
“A princess of Kalakankar state in Pratapgarh, she is carrying forward the legacy of her father Raja Dinesh Singh, who was an MP from here in 1967, 1971, 1984 and 1989. Ratna Singh was elected from there in 1996, 1999 and 2009,” said Prof Dube, former vice-chancellor of Uttar Pradesh Rajarshi Tandon Open University (UPRTOU) and former professor in political science at the Allahabad University.
The forefathers of Kunwar Ratanjit Pratap Narain Singh aka RPN Singh of Kushinagar used to serve in the court of Majhuali state. The former MP from Kushinagar (he won the seat in 2009) and former Union minister of state for home affairs, the Congress leader comes from the erstwhile ruling family of Padrauna Jagdishpur. He was elected as a legislator from Padrauna assembly seat in 1996, 2002 and 2007.
In 2014, he lost to BJP’s Rajesh Pandey alias Guddu Pandey.
His father Kunwar CPN Singh was earlier active in politics and was an MP from this seat in 1980 and 1984 and also served as union minister of state for defence and science and technology minister.
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Similarly, Kirtivardhan Singh is in election fray from Gonda seat as a BJP candidate. A prince of Mankapur estate, he won the seat in 1998 on an SP ticket and joined the BJP just before 2014 polls and won again from this seat. In 2019, the BJP has again entered in the election arena from this very seat.
Kirtivardhan is just taking his royal family’s legacy forward. Raghvendra Pratap Singh from this estate remained active in the Congress for around two decades and later his son Anand Singh, Kirtivardhan Singh’s father, fought and won the Gonda seat for the first time in 1971. In 1991, Anand Singh again contested from this seat but as an SP candidate and lost to BJP’s Brijbhushan Singh and in 1996 to Brijbhushan’s wife Ketki Devi Singh.
Political analyst Abhay Awasthi said that like Rajasthan and MP, UP had seen many former royals contesting elections and even winning them over the years.
“Sanjay Sinh, who hails from the royal family of Amethi and is currently a member of the Rajya Sabha from Assam, has served as an MLA from there twice in 1980 and 1984 but in 1998 he shifted to BJP and again got elected as MP from Amethi. In 2003, he returned to the Congress and got elected as MP from Sultanpur in 2009,” Awasthi said.
