Nitin Agarwal, UP assembly deputy speaker, steps down from post

UP polls 2022: In October last year, Agarwal was elected to the post as a nominee of the ruling BJP. However, at the time, he was technically still an MLA of the Samajwadi Party.

Nitin Agarwal, who was elected as the deputy speaker of the Uttar Pradesh assembly as a nominee of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in October last year, on Wednesday stepped down from his post, and also resigned as a legislator.

Nitin Agarwal (right) being offered sweets by Uttar Pradesh assembly speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit after former's election as deputy speaker of the assembly on October 18, 2021 (PTI Photo)

Agarwal also gave up his primary membership of the Samajwadi Party (SP). The MLA from the Hardoi constituency joined the BJP in 2018, along with his father and former SP leader Naresh Agarwal. However, at the time of his election as the deputy speaker of the UP assembly, he was, technically, still an MLA from the Akhilesh Yadav-led party.

On October 18, 2021, the 40-year-old politician defeated official Samajwadi candidate Narendra Verma by a margin of 244 votes; while the former secured 304 votes, Verma got 60 votes.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, too, had objected to Agarwal's nomination, questioning ‘which party does the candidate put up by the BJP belong to.’ The 3-term and incumbent MLA from Hardoi served as a minister of state in Yadav's SP government, which was in power in Uttar Pradesh from 2012 to 2017.

In the run-up to next month's assembly polls, which will take place in seven phases from February 10 to March 7, the BJP has been hit by a series of defections to the opposition SP, chief among which was that of then-labour minister Swami Prasad Maurya. The exit of Maurya, who joined from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 2016, triggered an exodus from the ruling dispensation, with more than a dozen legislators, too, announcing their departure in ‘support’ of Maurya.

Dara Singh Chauhan and Dharam Singh Saini, themselves sitting ministers in chief minister Yogi Adityanath's cabinet, too, defected with Maurya.

However, on Wednesday, the BJP welcomed in its fold Aparna Yadav, the younger daughter-in-law of Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and sister-in-law of Akhilesh Yadav.