By Express News Service

BHOPAL:  As the next assembly polls draw closer in Madhya Pradesh, the voices of discontent seem to be getting louder in the ruling BJP. Yet another senior leader of the party, former MLA from Vijayraghavgarh seat of Katni district, Dhruv Pratap Singh, now has vented his discontent, alleging that he is being sidelined in the party for the last eight years. 

While most disgruntled BJP leaders, including ex-minister Deepak Joshi (who recently joined the Congress) have blamed the growing clout of Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia-loyalists behind their unease, Singh (who won the Vijayraghavgarh seat in 2003) has alleged that the party in Katni district seems to have become the hegemony of present MLA and former minister Sanjay Pathak, who had quit Congress and joined BJP in 2014. 

“Since the last eight years, the party hasn’t found me worthy of any work, even during last year’s local body polls also. It seems the BJP has left and forgotten me. Eight years back (before Sanjay Pathak joined BJP) I was part of each and every BJP event in Katni district. But things are totally different now, the present state party president VD Sharma (also the local MP from Katni district) possibly doesn’t even recognize me,” Singh said on Thursday. 

Presently in Bhopal to meet state party’s top leadership, including the MP CM, Singh hails from a sworn non-Congress family and has been with the BJP since 1980. He defeated two-times sitting Congress MLA and then cabinet minister Satyendra Pathak from Vijayraghavgarh seat in 2003. Singh, however, lost the 2008 polls from the same seat to Pathak’s son Sanjay Pathak (one of the richest politicians currently in MP). Sanjay, who also won the seat in 2013, quit the Congress and joined the BJP in 2014 and was a minister in the previous Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government.

‘Hegemonised Katni’
MLA Dhruv Pratap Singh alleged that the party in Katni district seems to have become the hegemony from the past eight years of the present MLA and former minister Sanjay Pathak, who had quit Congress and joined BJP in 2014.