Former Army chief VK Singh to be BJP's candidate from Ghaziabad in UP

Ghaziabad: Former Army chief, Gen (Retd) V K Singh was today named as the BJP's candidate from Ghaziabad, the Lok Sabha constituency bordering Delhi on the north-east. He replaces party president Rajnath Singh, who has been shifted to Lucknow.

Gen Singh, who joined the BJP on March 1, will be taking on the challenge from actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar, who has been fielded by the Congress, and the Aam Aadmi Party's Shazia Ilmi. In the 2009 general election, Mr Rajnath Singh had won the seat after trouncing Congress' Surendra Prakash Goel by a margin of over 90,000 votes.

Gen Singh, 63, retired from the Army Chief's post on May 31, 2012 after a very troubled stint. He entered into a confrontation with the Centre over a dispute over his age, and even dragged the government to the Supreme Court for a resolution of the matter, becoming the first Army Chief to do so. After his superannuation, he flirted for a bit with Gandhian Anna Hazare, but eventually joined the BJP.

Gen Singh, who apparently had been tipped off about his candidature by the BJP's central leadership, had a very hostile start to his campaign. He was allegedly roughed up by a group of party workers during his visit to the party office in Ghaziabad's Nehru Nagar yesterday. They were protesting against the party's decision to foist an outsider on them. Gen Singh hails from Haryana. The police had to be called in to bring things under control.