LUCKNOW: Panchvati ab Congress ki nahi rahi (Panchvati does not belong to Congress anymore),” was the parting note of Dinesh Pratap Singh and his two siblings – Awdhesh Singh and Rakesh Pratap Singh, as all three quit Congress together in April, 2018. Panchvati happens to be the name of the house of Dinesh Pratap Singh and his five siblings, and a force to reckon with in Rae Bareli.
The family, popularly known as ‘Panchvati Parivar,’ is now a part of saffron bandwagon. The main accusation of Singhs against Congress high command was its indifference to local leaders. The Singhs who were Congress loyalists felt demeaned and strangulated by the party high command, forcing their exit from the Congress despite years of service and loyalty.
Known to be a close confidante of Sonia Gandhi in Rae Bareli, Dinesh Pratap began drifting away when Gandhis allegedly started promoting his opponents in his fiefdom. His rivalry with KL Sharma, Sonia’s representative in the constituency, was out in open.
Later, Dinesh and his siblings joined the BJP just ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He was rewarded as the party fielded him to challenge Sonia Gandhi in her bastion. Though he lost the seat to UPA chairperson, but managed to bring her victory margin down to 1.67 lakh votes from 3.72 lakh in 2014. While parting ways, Dinesh Pratap levelled serious charges against the Gandhi Parivar.
“They are running the Congress party as a ‘private limited company’ and personal fiefdom. There was no internal democracy and no one was allowed to raise any issue plaguing the party before the party high command,” he says.
He alleges that true Congress men now feel suffocated under the party leadership, led by one Gandhi after the other.
“It is not only Dinesh Pratap to have left Congress. Entire country has discarded the party. The faith of common voter in Congress has diminished. There must be something wrong with the grand old party because of which everyone is rejecting it. They should introspect,” he says.
Accusing the Congress high command of trying to finish local leadership with prominent clout in Rae Bareli, Dinesh Singh believes that Congress lost support of every section. “While upper castes gravitated to the BJP, Dalits found solace in BSP, Yadavs in SP and Muslims got divide among Congress, and regional satraps,” he observes.
“I didn’t want anything but respect and Gandhis were demeaning me in front of my opponents. They made my exit rather easy,” says the Rae Bareli leader adding:
“They wanted only Gandhi family to flourish since Rae Bareli is Sonia Gandhi’s constituency.”At the time of quitting the Grand Old Party, while Dinesh Pratap Singh was Congress MLC elected to UP Council for the second consecutive term in 2016, one of his brothers Rakesh was a Congress MLA from Harchandpur Assembly seat in Rae Bareli and another brother Awdhesh was chairman of Rae Bareli district panchayat.
After joining Congress, Dinesh Pratap was sent to UP Council for his first term as MLC in 2007.
In 2016, the party sent him to Council for the second consecutive term but by then the Thakur leader had started feeling suffocated under Gandhis in Rae Bareli.