The royal feud in Amethi took a new turn on Monday with Sanjay Singh pointedly accusing his first wife Garima Singh and son Anant Vikram Singh of “staging a melodrama” to extract wealth from him.
Apart from being the head of the erstwhile ruling family of Amethi, Sanjay, who is currently a Congress Rajya Sabha member, went to the extent of disowning both Garima Singh and Anant Vikram.
“I do not know Garima Singh for 25 years; she has decided to suddenly force her entry into my family residence with the sole intent of extracting money from me,” Sanjay told a press conference in Amethi.
When a media person sought to draw his attention to Garima’s claim of being his legitimately and legally wedded wife even today, he shot back, “I have been married to Ameeta for 25 years.”
He parried questions relating to his divorce with Garima, which was challenged and eventually declared null and void.
“You all are also respectable people and so are we; so let us not go into further details of the issue,” he said while seeking to wriggle out of the barrage of queries about the divorce.
Garima, on the other hand, was armed with documents to prove that the divorce decree obtained by Sanjay was “invalid”.
In a retort to Sanjay’s claim that he had not known her for 25 years, Garima said, “Well, I continue to be his one and only legally-wedded wife.”
Having preferred to lie low and to suffer
“I am not here to hunt for his money; I am simply fighting for the legitimate right of my son Anant Vikram, who is the rightful claimant to the legacy of Amethi Raj and is therefore entitled to live here,” she told media persons.
Not ready to take it lying down, Ameeta tried to come up with her own story, claiming, “I looked after Anant Vikram like a son and this is what I am getting in return.”
Sanjay too stood up for her, saying: “You can see for yourself that as long as Anant Vikram was with Ameeta, he was working as a merchant navy officer. But now that he is with Garima, he is jobless; doing nothing.”
He added, “And what is worse is that today, Anant Vikram is also an accused in a criminal case.”
Sanjay was referring to the violence that took place outside the Amethi royal palace on Sunday when a police constable was killed in exchange of fire.
Anant Vikram was among those accused of inciting the violence.
“It was Anant Vikram who went about calling up the people of Amethi to assemble outside the palace, which sparked off violence,” he alleged.
A huge contingent of police continues to guard the palace gates.
Meanwhile, the people of Amethi continued to express all support for Garima and her son Anant Vikram.
Refusing to accept Ameeta as the ‘Rani’ of Amethi , they remained vociferous in reiterating their sublime faith in Garima.
