New Delhi: Union Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh on Sunday offered to resign from the Cabinet and also as a Rajya Member after the BJP fielded his son Brijendra Singh from the Hisar Lok Sabha constituency in Haryana.
“I thought it proper that if my son gets nomination, I should resign from the Rajya Sabha and also from the Ministry. So I have written to (BJP President) Amit Shahji. I leave it to the party… I am ready to resign,” he told reporters.
Birender Singh’s decision to quit is being seen as an effort to send across a message of anti-dynastic politics as his son has been given a Lok Sabha ticket.
Brijendra Singh, an IAS officer, will start his political journey from the same Hisar seat, which his father had won in 1984 by defeating former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala.
A Haryana cadre IAS officer of 1998 batch, Brijendra Singh is posted as the Managing Director (MD) of the Haryana State Cooperative Supply and Marketing Federation. Hisar is represented by Dushyant Chautala, who recently formed the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) after quiting the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD).
In the 2011 Lok Sabha bypoll, Kuldeep Bishnoi of the Haryana Janhit Congress had defeated Dushyant’s father Ajay Chautala by 6,323 votes. In 2014, Dushyant avenged his father’s loss by defeating Bishnoi by a margin of 31,847 votes. At 26, he was also the youngest MP in the 16th Lok Sabha.
Prominent Jat leader Birender Singh joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014, ending his more than four-decade association with the Congress following differences with then Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
The Congress had appointed him a Rajya Sabha member in 2010, after his tussle with Hooda started to spill over in public. Four years later, he joined the BJP after openly revolting against Hooda and became a Minister in the Narendra Modi government.
Birender Singh also represented the Uchana Assembly constituency five times and had served as a Cabinet Minister in the Haryana government. (IANS)
