New Delhi: Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh was on Monday appointed the vice president of Bharatiya Janata Party. BJP president Rajnath Singh made the appointment.
Kalyan re-joined the party at its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi`s rally in Lucknow on Sunday. He belongs to the Lodh community, which represents about two percent of UP`s population and is viewed as a strong vote-bank in a dozen or so seats in the state, including Bundelkhand.
Kalyan Singh has been sharing the dias with Modi during his rallies in UP starting in Kanpur last October. So his return to the BJP was just a formality. He had left the BJP for the first time in 1999. His departure was followed by his verbal attacks on the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
However, he returned to the BJP in 2004 and contested successfully from Bulandshahr. But he again left the party in 2009 due to differences over distribution of party tickets for the Lok Sabha elections and joined hands with the Samajwadi Party.
Later, he parted ways with Mulayam Singh also.
