Sanjay Singh, 64, a Rajya Sabha member is also a member of former royal family of Amethi. (File Photo)
Highlights
- Sanjay Singh is expected to be the chief of the Congress' campaign in UP
- Mr Singh is a member of Rajya Sabha and former Amethi royal family
- He is said to have been handpicked for the role by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra
Sanjay Singh, Rajya Sabha member and the "Raja of Amethi," will head the Congress' campaign committee for the crucial Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
Mr Singh, 64 is said to have been handpicked for the role by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress president Sonia Gandhi's daughter. He is a member of the former royal family of Amethi, the parliamentary constituency of party vice president Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka's brother.
An aggressive campaigner, Sanjay Singh, is seen as a resourceful and energetic leader with influence among the Rajputs, as the Congress puts in place a caste matrix it believes will allow it to optimise votes in the state elections to be held in early 2017.
Election strategist Prashant Kishor, drafted to design the Congress' UP campaign, is said to have wanted a Brahmin leader to be projected for chief minister and former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit has been chosen, the Congress' Ghulam Nabi Azad announced today. The party has named actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar, 64, an Other Backward Caste or OBC leader, as its state unit president.
Apart from the boxes he checks for the role of campaign committee chief, the Congress has tried to ensure that it does not offend Sanjay Singh, who had in the past left the party and had famously contested elections against Congress president Sonia Gandhi as a BJP candidate in 1999. He returned to the party in 2003.
Two years ago the Congress gave Sanjay Singh a Rajya Sabha seat from Assam.
This amid reports that Mr Singh, then Lok Sabha lawmaker from Sultanpur in UP, was exploring another stint in the BJP since he was upset at not being made a minister in the then Congress-led UPA government.
That move served Mr Singh well - in national elections held soon after, the Congress could win only two parliament seats in UP, Rahul Gandhi's Amethi and Sonia Gandhi's Rae Bareli. Sultanpur was won by the BJP's Varun Gandhi, Rahul's first cousin.
Varun's father Sanjay Gandhi was Sanjay Singh's mentor in politics. He was also seen as close to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, but left the Congress in 1988 to first join the Janata Dal and then the BJP, which fielded him from Amethi, a traditional Gandhi seat.
Sanjay Singh won the national elections from Amethi in 1998, but lost to Sonia Gandhi when elections were held again in 1999.