A gleeful BJP on Tuesday projected the desertion of R.P.N. Singh as yet another flight from Rahul Gandhi’s “inner circle”, openly gloating about how they have been pilfering members from the Congress leader’s core team.

Like Jyotiraditya Scindia and Jitin Prasada, who are already enjoying power after switching to the BJP from the Congress, 57-year-old RPN, as he is popularly called, used to be a member of Team Rahul.

“The only prominent member of Rahul’s inner circle who still remains in the Congress is Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot,” a BJP leader said, claiming that Pilot too would join the BJP sooner or later.

Scindia, Prasada and RPN were ministers in the UPA government and it was widely believed that Rahul was behind their elevation as he was building his “gen-next team”.

The Congress had reposed faith in RPN, who had been junior home minister at the Centre, and had appointed RPN the AICC in-charge of Jharkhand, where the party is part of the ruling alliance, a couple of years ago. He was being propped up as an OBC leader of the party.

Only on Monday, RPN had figured on the Congress’s list of star campaigners for the February-March Uttar Pradesh polls.

But Congress sources said RPN had recently lost the trust of Rahul and as a result stood sidelined in Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s campaign in Uttar Pradesh.

RPN had been a three-time MLA of Padrauna in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar district before serving in the Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014 as the Kushinagar MP.

Given that RPN’s electoral influence is limited to Kushinagar in east Uttar Pradesh, the BJP’s joy appeared more due to the fact that they had succeeded in poaching yet another Congress leader who had been close to Rahul.

Education minister and Uttar Pradesh poll in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan himself disclosed how he had been assiduously pursuing the defections of close members of Rahul’s team from the days when the UPA was in power.

“I had been after Jyotiraditya since 2004, telling him that he was in the wrong party,” Pradhan said at a media conference in the BJP headquarters.

Scindia, who was the first to defect and help the BJP pull down the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, was also present. Rewarded with the civil aviation ministry in the Narendra Modi government, Scindia welcomed RPN into the BJP with a bouquet.

Pradhan said that around the time he was wooing Scindia, he had gone to meet RPN, then junior home minister, at the North Block and urged him to defect to the BJP.

“I had even told R.P.N. Singhji during our meeting at the North Block that he should join the BJP,” Pradhan said, RPN nodding in confirmation.

“I am happy that today both Jyotiradityaji and RPN Singhji are part of the BJP family to strengthen PM Modiji’s nation-building,” Pradhan added.

Congress leader Salman Anees Soz tweeted: “R.P.N. Singh left just before the elections, after he was listed as a star campaigner in UP. This was not a coincidence. It was planned. He and his new collaborators wanted this to hurt. But the question for us in INC is, why did we let it happen this way? How did we not know?”

The BJP ecosystem also highlighted RPN’s OBC antecedents at a time several backward caste ministers and MLAs have left Yogi Adityanath and joined the Samajwadi Party. Swami Prasad Maurya, a prominent OBC leader who quit the Uttar Pradesh cabinet, now represents Padrauna.

Jharkhand ‘plot’

Congress leaders in Jharkhand termed RPN’s switch to the BJP inconsequential. Some party workers burst crackers at the state Congress headquarters in Ranchi.

Amba Prasad, the Congress MLA from Barkagaon in Ramgarh district, accused RPN of colluding with the BJP “for more than a year” to destabilise JMM-led UPA government in Jharkhand.

“…The party leadership was also being frequently warned about this. Every true Congress worker in Jharkhand is happy with him going to the BJP,” Prasad tweeted.

Jharkhand Congress chief Rajesh Thakur said RPN’s decision to resign from the Congress was “wrong”.