Rae Bareli may soon be 'Congress-Mukt'. No, this is not a rhetorical claim by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It, indeed, is supported by facts. Two Congress legislators are all set to join the BJP. Not to forget, Rae Bareli is the parliamentary constituency of Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi.
The Congress party has seven MLAs in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly which has 403 members. Two Congress MLAs are from Rae Bareli.
According to IANS sources, both the legislators are waiting to be expelled so that they do not lose their membership. The Congress legislators are not too keen on resigning and then seeking re-election from their respective seats.
The two Congress legislators from Rae Bareli are Aditi Singh and Rakesh Singh.
Aditi Singh, on Wednesday, defied the party diktat and attended the special assembly session where she lauded the developmental work being done by the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh.
The Congress had decided to boycott the assembly session in protest against the 'anti-people' policies of the Yogi government.
Aditi Singh not only attended the assembly session on Wednesday but chose to stay away from a padyatra led by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Lucknow on the same day.
Later, she told reporters that "did what I felt was right and will accept whatever the party decides".
Rakesh Singh is the younger brother of Dinesh Singh, a Congress MLC who had rebelled to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in April last year.
Dinesh Singh continues to be an MLC and his term expires in March 2020.
Rakesh Singh has already stopped attending party functions and meetings and is inclined towards BJP.
Interestingly, Aditi Singh and Dinesh Singh have been at loggerheads till recently when the BJP became a bonding factor between them.
In May this year, Aditi Singh had claimed that she was attacked while she was on her way to a district panchayat meeting and had blamed the Dinesh Singh group for the attack.
Meanwhile, sources in the Congress said that the decision regarding Aditi Singh and Rakesh Singh will be taken by Sonia Gandhi since the matter concerns her own constituency.
The Congress, on Thursday, expelled former MP Ramakant Yadav who is preparing to join the Samajwadi Party on Sunday.
(With IANS inputs)
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