BJP aims at taking Kalyan’s legacy forward

On Tuesday, Kalyan Singh’s son and BJP’s Etah MP Rajveer Singh thanked UP CM Yogi Adityanath and said that the CM has played the role of the elder son of Kalyan Singh. Yogi Adityanath had been personally taken care of the last-rite arrangements right from the day Kalyan Singh passed away. While all the top BJP leadership, including PM Modi, home minister Amit Shah and BJP president JP Nadda paid their tributes to Kalyan Singh, it was Yogi, who for three days, was busy with all the arrangements. Post the last rites, Yogi made a statement that a Ram Bhakt had left for the heavenly abode.

UP deputy CM Keshav Maurya announced five roads –– in Ayodhya, Etah, Aligarh, Bulandshahr and Prayag Raj –– to be named after Kalyan Singh. In Ayodhya, the road leading to the Ram Temple will be named after Kalyan Singh.

On Tuesday, the Kasganj district panchayat received an application from the zilla panchayat member Sitara Kashyap for naming Kasganj after Kalyan Singh.

The state government may also name certain institutions after him and a few statues would also come up by January next year –– that is, on his birth anniversary. While Yogi Adityanath has called him a Ram Bhakt to connect to his Hindu identity, other leaders are focusing on his OBC stature.

On Tuesday, BJP leaders launched a simultaneous attack through social media on the opposition SP and Congress leaders for not paying their last respects to Kalyan Singh. BJP leaders alleged that Yadav didn’t pay last respect to Kalyan Singh to hold on to the Muslim votes and now he has lost the right to talk about backward castes.

Kalyan Singh hails from the Lodh Rajput community, which has a strong presence in Aligarh, Etah, Bulandshahr, Agra and nearby areas. Debai in Bulandshahr, from where Kalyan Singh used to be an MLA, is called the land of Lodh Rajputs. In 2017, BJP had won all the 16 assembly seats of Aligarh, Bulandshahr and Etah and Lodhs had a big role in that victory. The backward-plus Hindu voters drive by the BJP has got a new leader in Kalyan Singh before the 2022 polls, and the party is willing to keep his memories alive in people’s minds.