Lucknow Jul 30:- Swatantra Dev Singh has quit as Uttar Pradesh BJP chief. While Singh refused to comment, sources close to him confirmed that he indeed gave the resignation to JP Nadda three days ago. His three-year tenure anyway came to an end on July 16.
The resignation by Singh, who is also a cabinet minister for Jal Shakti, came days after his junior minister Dinesh Khatik sent his resignation to Union home minister Amit Shah, castigating the state bureaucracy of having a malice towards him because of his Dalit identity. Khatik was reportedly upset with Singh and his team of officers who helmed the overall functioning of the Jal Shakti department.
While Khatik managed to iron out his differences after meeting CM Yogi Adityanath, BJP sources said that his close affiliation with the RSS may have forced Swatantra Dev to relinquish the UP BJP post. Of late, RSS had been underscoring the need of being affable towards Dalits and socially oppressed who have been showing allegiance towards the BJP since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Notably, like Singh, Khatik, too, started his career with the RSS and rose through the ranks to win from Hastinapur reserved seat in Meerut in 2017 and 2022 assembly elections.
Khatik’s grandfather Banwari Khatik and father Devendra Kumar, too, were prominent RSS functionaries.
Besides, Khatik, a host of other senior ministers, including deputy CM Brajesh Pathak (he holds the charge of medical and health) and PWD minister Jitin Prasada, too, had flagged the issues of allegedly disputable transfer of officials in their respective departments.
Experts said that, if at all, he could have resigned from the post on July 16 only when his three-year tenure came to an end. Significantly, the saffron party does not have the custom of a state unit chief resigning from his post – it is a simple process of one leader taking over the charge.
Before Singh, it was Kalraj Mishra and Surya Pratap Shahi who offered to resign as UP BJP president in 2002 and 2012, respectively. But that was following the party’s debacle in the then held state elections.
In the case of Singh, however, the BJP managed to return to power in UP for the first time in the state’s political history.
Experts point out that Singh’s resignation happened to be largely symbolic since he would have paved the way for a new state unit president soon. Sources said that the party would not have liked to remain headless, even for a short period.
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