‘Total foreign policy failure’: SP’s Chandauli MP on Op Sindoor, monsoon session

In a conversation with Newslaundry, Samajwadi Party leader and Chandauli MP Virendra Singh talks about the monsoon session, Operation Sindoor, his party’s “PDA ki Pathshala” initiative, and his political experience across party lines.

“Yes, I was a minister in a BJP-led government, but I never compromised on my ideology,” he says.

Singh’s political journey began with the Congress in the early 1990s. He was first elected MLA in 1996, and went on to form the Loktantrik Congress Party, extend support to the BJP, and even serve as a minister in the Kalyan Singh government. Later, he was elected MLA with the BSP, before rejoining the Congress and then moving to the Samajwadi Party. 

Now a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, Singh criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Operation Sindoor speech in Parliament. “When we were outside Parliament, we thought no lies were spoken inside. But once inside, I saw that mostly what’s said is based on falsehoods. The conduct we had imagined was not found there.”

From Mayawati’s politics to the SP’s grassroots strategy, Singh reflects on three decades in politics and where he sees Uttar Pradesh headed next.

Watch.

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