This whimsical Congress leader can’t be ignored

Remember the famous line from Salman Khan-starrer Bollywood flick “Wanted”? “Ek baar jo maine commitment kar di, uske baad to khud ki bhi nahi sunta.” Bharatpur’s ex-royal and Congress legislator Vishvendra Singh comes across as an antithesis of the ‘Wanted’ hero.

People in politics find him an unpredictable leader. In March 2016, at a PCC meeting in Jaipur, he out of the blue asked Congressmen to raise hands if Sachin Pilot was acceptable to them as their undisputed leader. Taken aback, even Ashok Gehlot had to raise hands. During the Dholpur bypolls last year, the Jat leader was at loggerheads with Pilot. Two months back he announced to welcome chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s ‘Gaurav Yatra’ in Bharatpur division.

For all his whimsical ways, the 56-year-old Bharatpur scion cannot be ignored by the political parties. His word is the command in the land dominated by the Sinsinwar Jats. Singh holds direct sway on Deeg-Kumher and Nadbai and can influence results in Kaman and Weir. The BJP is finding it tough to counter him in the region.

Singh earlier supported BJP that sent him to the Lok Sabha from Bharatpur in 1989, 1999 and 2004. He was the party’s MLA from 1993 to 1998. His wife Divya Singh too was BJP’s Lok Sabha member from Bharatpur (1996-98). By pushing for more of his loyalists as Congress candidates in the coming elections, the ex-royal is eyeing a bigger pie in the next dispensation.