Lucknow: Senior Congress leader and former party president Sonia Gandhi’s close aide Dinesh Pratap Singh today joined the BJP in the presence of party chief Amit Shah.

His younger brother and Zila Panchayat Chairman Avdhesh Singh also joined the BJP.

The two brothers are said to enjoy considerable clout in the Gandhi family bastion of Rae Bareli.

Soon after he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, Dinesh Pratap Singh said he was disappointed at what he got in return from the Congress for his loyalty for so many years.

He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will retain power for a second term after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

He claimed that no one from the Gandhi family, not even the United Progressive Alliance Chairperson’s daughter Priyanka Vadra, will be able to win Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli in future.

Dinesh thanked the BJP for what he called “grooming and developing” the constituency, which otherwise should have been done by the Congress leaders when they held the seat for decades.