Amid bitter politics over buses for UP migrant workers, Aditi Singh, rebel Congress MLA from Raebareli, has taken the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) line and targeted Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi on Wednesday.
Slamming Priyanka Gandhi, Singh said, "At the time of crisis what was the need of the low level politics. Gave the list of 1,000 buses, half of them fake or junked. Why this cruel joke? If you had buses why you didn't send them to Rajasthan, MP and Maharashtra.
"When thousand of children were stuck in Kota, the Rajasthan government couldn't drop them to the borders, forget about home. Then Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath facilitated the children to reach home."
The tweets under @aditisinghinc suggest Singh has derived a new path. She may be technically in the Congress for the sake of House membership, but slamming Priyanka Gandhi cast aspersions about her politics.
The calls and messages to Aditi Singh went unanswered. But, according to highly placed sources, the BJP is nurturing her for the Raebareli parliamentary seat, which has been a Congress stronghold.
Aditi Singh's father late Akhilesh Pratap Singh was an MLA and had once contested against Sonia Gandhi in the Lok Sabha elections. But later he returned to the Congress.
Sonia Gandhi, sitting Lok Sabha member from Amethi since 2004 had shifted to Raebareli. But the Congress could win the Raebareli Sadar Assembly seat only when Aditi Singh joined the party. Before that her father was independent MLA from the seat most of the time.
In 2019, the BJP nominated Dinesh Singh, an MLC, against Sonia Gandhi. But he lost badly. At that time Aditi Singh and her father were with the Congress.
Amethi, the other Congress citadel, has already fallen with Smriti Irani defeating Rahul Gandhi in 2019. Since then Sanjay Singh of Amethi has left the party.
Reacting to Singh's tweets, K.L. Sharma, Congress Secretary and Raebareli in-charge, said a notice was pending against her in the Assembly for violating the party whip last year. "She is avoiding the reply and the Speaker is also not taking action," Sharma said.
After Aditi Singh's tweets, the Congress members are openly demanding that she be sacked immediately.
( With inputs from IANS )