MUMBAI: Senior Maharashtra state Congress leader Kripashankar Singh who is credited with turning North Indians' voters to the Congress fold since the late 90s joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today in presence of senior leaders like former CM Devendra Fadnavis.

The development comes ahead of the municipal elections in the city, which are scheduled shortly, and Singh's defection to the saffron party is seen as changing the equations in the city municipal corporation.

Singh considered being close to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her secretary late Ahmed Patel was shielded by the party when the name of his family members including his son and his wife was embroiled in several scams including the Jharkhand mining scam in which the former chief minister of that state Madhu Koda was arrested.

Kripashankar Singh has held the posts of President of Mumbai Congress, and Minister of State for home in the Maharashtra cabinet in 2004 and was a formidable force against Shiv Sena June 2011, when he resigned after his son was linked to the 2G case, the telecommunications corruption scandal of 2010.

Singh landed in trouble during the intervening period due to the discovery of disproportionate assets in the 2008–09 period, when several accounts held by Kripashankar's wife Maltidevi, and his son Narendra, showed deposits and transfers totalling Rs 65 crore by Kamlesh Singh, an aide of Koda.

In February 2012, the Bombay High Court directed the city police commissioner to prosecute Singh for 'criminal misconduct' under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Apparently, for a man who started out as a vegetable vendor in 1973, Singh had amassed property worth over Rs 320 crore in 39 years in his name and that of his family members.

Since then, he has been hampered by active politics. However, in the past few years, he has slowly begun to get a foothold into state politics and he clearly started to show his affinity towards BJP. In 2019 he openly questioned the role played by Congress after the removal of Articles 370 and 35A from Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 and did not campaign for the party in the 2019 Assembly elections in the state.

In fact, he had tendered his resignation to Congress leader Sonia Gandhi in protest of the Congress' stance and even though he did not join any party since then he began, however, it was known in the political circles that Singh has been meeting up with BJP leaders and it was being speculated that he would join the BJP soon.

Mumbai has a population of over 50 lakh North Indians and with 20 to 25 per cent of the vote in the civic body, the community can swing the fortunes of candidates in several wards in the richest civic body of the country. The only other popular North Indian leader in the state Congress is Sanjay Nirupam the former president of the Mumbai Regional Congress who lost to BJP's Gopal Shetty in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Nirupam was however sulking since 2019 after he was summarily removed from his post and had been indicating that he would leave the party anytime as he felt sidelined. 

He has been recently rehabilitated by the party high command and appointed on the parliamentary board of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) under the newly appointed president Nana Patole. 

Nirupam will play a crucial role in the finalisation of nominees for the ensuing civic election slated for 2022 and also polls for other civic and local bodies.