E-Paper
2 expelled BSP MLAs join SP at Janadesh Rally in Ambedkar Nagar
Both Verma and Rajbhar are MLAs from Assembly constituencies in Ambedkar Nagar. Verma is an MLA from Katehari while Rajbhar has the Akbarpur constituency.
Two Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLAs, Lalji Verma and Ramachal Rajbhar, joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) in the presence of SP national president Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday at the Janadesh Rally the two jointly organised in Ambedkar Nagar. Both are expelled BSP leaders.
Both Verma and Rajbhar are MLAs from Assembly constituencies in Ambedkar Nagar. Verma is an MLA from Katehari while Rajbhar has the Akbarpur constituency.
Their joining is no surprise, both had announced their plan to join the party at Samajwadi Party state headquarters in Lucknow on October 25.
The development comes a week after six BSP MLAs (suspended from the party) joined the SP. On October 30, BSP rebel MLAs Aslam Raini (representing Bhinga in Shravasti), Mujtaba Siddiqui (Pratapur, Prayagraj), Aslam Ali Chaudhary (Dhalauna, Hapur), Hakim Lal Bind (Handia, Prayagraj), Sushma Patel (Mungra Badshapur, Jaunpur), and Hargovind Bhargava (Sidhauli, Sitapur) joined SP in Lucknow.
The Sunday’s Janadesh Rally organised by Verma and Rajbhar is themed largely on price rise with the slogan ‘Mehgaayi par vaar hoga; Baaees mein badlav hoga (There will be attack on price rise which will spur change in 2022 assembly polls)’.
It’s almost set that Lalji Verma and Ramachal Rajbhar will re-contest their respective constituencies in the 2022 UP assembly polls- this time on SP tickets.
BSP chief Mayawati expelled Verma and Rajbhar on June 3 on the charge of indulging in anti-party activities during the panchayat election earlier this year. Verma held the post of the leader of the BSP legislature party in the state assembly while Rajbhar was the national general secretary of the party. The expulsion of the two top BSP leaders before the assembly election surprised the political observers as well as BSP workers. The six BSP rebel MLAs who had joined the SP last week were suspended from BSP after they had opposed the nomination of the party’s official candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls last October.
With this, as the 2022 UP polls are nearing, the SP continues to attract leaders from different parties and tie-up with small regional parties.
Last month, two Congress leaders from western UP, Harendra Malik and his son Pankaj Malik, joined SP soon after the party announced an alliance with the former BJP-ally-turned-rival Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP).
Earlier this week, Akhilesh Yadav announced that his party will ally with Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L) of his estranged uncle Shivpal Yadav.
“The SP will not ally with any big political party but will instead opt for strategic alliances with small regional parties,” the SP chief had been repeatedly saying at press conferences.
On the day, when six BSP MLAs and one BJP MLA (Rakesh Rathore of Sitapur Sadar constituency) joined SP, senior Uttar Pradesh minister and state government spokesman Sidharth Nath Singh said that Samajwadi Party may have been making lofty claims of victory in the 2022 assembly polls but the fact remains that it has been inducting “rejects” of other parties to complete its list of 403 candidates.
It only manifests the desperation of Akhilesh Yadav who had been busy taking in leaders from other parties left and right. It clearly shows that his party did not have candidates for the 2022 elections, the BJP leader said.
Uttar Pradesh is likely to go to the polls early next year for its 403 seats assembly.
