Four years after he handed the BJP an embarrassing defeat by beating veteran Murli Manohar Joshi in the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat, Reoti Raman Singh finds himself at the receiving end of a ‘sting operation’ by the party that shook Parliament and the nation on Tuesday.

The eight-time MLA has been accused by the three BJP MPs who carried Rs 1 crore into Parliament as being the middleman in the “deal”, that Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh was reportedly trying to strike with them to abstain in the trust vote.

A shaken Singh, whose father Kunwar Madhvendra Pratap Singh was a staunch Mahatma Gandhi follower, denies the charges. “I am being framed. I do not even know Ashok Argal, the BJP MP from Morena. The BJP MP met me in the Central Hall of Parliament seeking my help for fixing a meeting with Amar Singh... Argal’s claim that I took him to Amar Singh’s residence is a blatant lie.”

According to Singh, Argal pleaded with him that since his Morena seat had been abolished by the Delimitation Commission, he wanted to contest from the Samajwadi Party. “I told him that Amar Singh is in-charge of Madhya Pradesh, I can arrange the meeting and only he can decide on the party ticket... The party needs winnable candidates and I thought that Argal’s case would be settled as was the case of Brij Bhushan Singh, the BJP MP from Balrampur.”

Hailing from the erstwhile royal family of Baraon, the 65-year-old represented Karchana Assembly constituency in Allahabad from 1974 to 2004, barring 1993 when he was defeated by the BSP candidate. In 2004, he was shifted to the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat, and won.

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