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Sanjay Singh locked in battle for Amethi Palace with first wife, 3 children
Congress Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh is trying very hard to evict his own wife and children from Amethi Palace.
Sharat Pradhan / Rediff.com reports
Congress Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh -- better known as the erstwhile Raja of Amethi -- is moving heaven and earth to get his wife Garima Singh and three children evicted from the family palace in Amethi.
What is strange is that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is reportedly going all out to help Sanjay achieve his mission, ignoring the fundamental legal and moral issues.
Sanjay, who got into politics in the late seventies as a close lieutenant of Sanjay Gandhi, later got into the inner coterie of Rajiv Gandhi. He, however, switched loyalties to the Janata Dal when his uncle-in-law Vishwanath Pratap Singh revolted against Rajiv.
Later, he joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party and even became a minister at the Centre. After bouncing back in the Congress, he was once again all set to revert to BJP when Rahul sent him to Rajya Sabha.
Sanjay has now struck a chord with Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who is now helping him out.
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Sanjay Singh locked in battle for Amethi Palace with first wife, 3 children
“The Amethi district magistrate called my brother on phone on Friday night and told him pointedly that there were instructions from the UP chief minister to ensure that we leave the Amethi Bhupathi Palace by Saturday morning,” Sanjay Singh’s 39-year-old daughter Mahima Singh told rediff.com.
“My bother told him that this palace legitimately belongs to us as much as it belongs to my father,” she added.
Mahima, who lives with her husband in San Francisco, is camping in one portion of the palace along with her brother Anant Vikram Singh, sister Shaivya and mother Garima Singh, whom Sanjay deserted to marry Ameeta Modi.
Ameeta was the widow of India’s one-time badminton champion Syed Modi, in whose murder case she and Sanjay were among the accused. Both Ameeta and Sanjay eventually got a clean chit from the Supreme Court.
More than two decades after Sanjay entered into wedlock with Ameeta, his first wife and children have chosen to join issues with him. It is another matter that they are pointing the accusing finger only at Ameeta, who at one point of time had managed to win over Sanjay’s three children.
Garima, who had also initially preferred to suffer silently, chose to question Sanjay’s
marriage with Ameeta which technically amounted to polygamy. The divorce order obtained by Sanjay in 1995 as a ticket to his second marriage was subsequently declared as “illegal.”
Mahima, therefore, questions the very status of Ameeta as Sanjay Singh’s legally wedded wife.
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Sanjay Singh locked in battle for Amethi Palace with first wife, 3 children
“The very basis of my father’s marriage with Ameeta Modi is false and therefore the marriage is invalid,” she pointed out.
Referring to an Apex court order, she added, “Please take a look at the Supreme Court order which, in 1998, set aside the divorce decree fraudulently obtained by my father. It also clearly upheld my mother’s status as the true and legally-wedded wife of Sanjay Singh.”
The daughter is, therefore, horrified at the state government’s attitude in going out of its way to support a “completely illegal cause”.
She wonders, “How and why the chief minister was out to help Ameeta Modi, whose only game plan is to see that the legitimate heirs of Amethi are deprived of their inheritance rights so that she can grab all the property over which she has no rightful claim.”
Garima had lodged an FIR with the Amethi police on Friday, after she discovered that she and her children were virtually held captive on the orders of Ameeta, who reportedly got them locked inside a portion of the palace where her son Anant Vikram had been living for the past two months.
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Sanjay Singh locked in battle for Amethi Palace with first wife, 3 children
Anant Vikram’s stay in Amethi had earned him much goodwill with the local population. It was therefore no surprise when hundreds of people of Amethi stood up in his support on Friday when some goons allegedly let loose by Sanjay Singh and Ameeta attempted to attack him on Friday.
The local police has now registered a counter FIR against Anant Vikram Singh and while the cops have taken no action on the FIR lodged by Garima on Friday, station in charge Mohammad Hameed has been busy sending threats to her to vacate the premises or face eviction.
“Nearly nine of us (including some relatives) are living in just two rooms with just one toilet and a non-functional kitchen, in one corner of the massive palace; and my father and his illegal wife Ameeta wants us evicted from there too,” Mahima pointed out.
“I am simply seeking justice for my mother and brother and we will take this fight to a legal, logical end,” she emphasised.
Neither the police station in charge nor the district magistrate responded to repeated calls.