It took less than four days for Dr Satyapal Singh to make the transition from being Mumbai’s Police Commissioner to becoming the probable BJP candidate from a constituency in western Uttar Pradesh.

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The entry of Singh, who hails from a well known Jat family from Meerut, into the political fray is being seen as a challenge to Rashtriya Lok Dal chief and current Civil Aviation minister Ajit Singh. There is speculation that the former IPS officer could be directly pitted against the wily Jat leader from either Baghpat or Meerut constituency. If his resignation caught people in Mumbai unawares, this development comes as a surprise to the Jat community in the region — Satyapal is closely related to Ajit Singh and had even served as his private secretary for a year when he was Industry Minister in the Vishwanath Pratap  Singh-led government in 1989-90. Whatever the final outcome of this contest, it promises to go down to the wire.