The VIP seat is readying for a contest between senior Congress leader Sanjay Sinh's present wife Amita Sinh nee Modi and ex-wife Garima Singh, who is preparing to contest on a BJP ticket.
The stage is set for a battle royale of sorts in the famous constituency of Amethi which has been a pocket borough of the Gandhi-Nehru family. Rahul Gandhi represents Amethi in the Lok Sabha. Earlier, Sonia, Rajiv and Sanjay Gandhi have held the seat.
The VIP seat is readying for a contest between senior Congress leader Sanjay Sinh's present wife Amita Sinh nee Modi and ex-wife Garima Singh, who is preparing to contest on a BJP ticket.
Sanjay Sinh, who presides over the 1,200-year-old Amethi royal family, has been so rattled by the development that he has had to issue a written statement to salvage the situation.
Worse, the controversy comes at a time when the Congress high command is said to be considering Sinh for UP Congress presidentship. Interestingly, Sinh had won the Amethi Lok Sabha seat on a BJP ticket in 1998.
Sinh's son from Garima, Anant Vikram Singh, who is the legal scion of the royal family, has announced that his mother would be contesting the 2017 Assembly election from Amethi as a representative of the royal family.
"My mother's name has been proposed as a BJP candidate from Amethi for the upcoming election, and we are awaiting the green signal from the party leadership," Anant told reporters in Amethi. Earlier, Anant was himself reported to be preparing for a contest against his step-mother. But he has denied these reports.
The sudden development has apparently taken Sanjay Sinh by surprise. "I had divorced Garima Singh and for the past 28 years, there has been no relation between us," he said in a statement released to the media.
Anant and his mother have been occupying a portion of the royal palace in Amethi despite severe opposition by Sanjay and Amita. The dispute over the palace has often erupted into violent skirmishes, one of them even marked by firing and death of a policeman in 2014.
In his statement, Sinh said he was the head of the royal family and Anant had no authority to declare who would represent them in the election. "Anant has committed the crime of insulting his ancestors, getting carried away by the advice of some immature people," Singh stated.
Sinh had married Amita, an ace badminton player, after the mysterious murder of her husband and eight-time national badminton champion Syed Modi. The murder, of which Sinh was also an accused, was investigated by the CBI for several years but the probe remained inconclusive.
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