UP MLC Sarojini Agarwal quits Samajwadi Party to join BJP
Sarojini Agarwal is the third SP MLC to quit the legislative council since July 29 when two others resigned citing differences with the party leadership.
A Samajwadi Party lawmaker of the Uttar Pradesh legislative council quit on Friday and became the fourth opposition member from the upper house to join the ruling BJP within a fortnight.
The Samajwadi Party lawmaker of the Uttar Pradesh legislative council quit on Friday. (File Photo)
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Sarojini Agarwal is the third SP MLC to quit the legislative council since July 29 when two others resigned citing differences with the party leadership.
A Bahujan Samaj Patry (BSP) member also quit the same day, when BJP president Amit Shah was in Lucknow for a party programme.
All three joined the BJP within a couple of days.
Sarojini Agarwal, whose tenure was due to end in 2022, said decided to quit as Mulayam Singh Yadav, the founder of SP was no longer in the organisation, hinting she was unhappy with former chief minister minister Akhilesh Yadav, who is leading the party. She also hinted at joining the BJP, which stormed to power this year.
Agarwal’s resignation created one more vacancy needed for chief minister Yogi Adityanath and four of his ministers to become members of either houses of UP’s bicameral legislature.
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Yogi and his four ministers have less than two months for this but they can become MLCs without contesting elections.
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Yogi and his four ministers have less than two months for this but they can become MLCs without contesting elections.
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Previous chief ministers Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati had opted for this route to enter the upper house.
There are four vacancies in the upper house, the Vidhan Parishad.
Besides Adityanath, the other ministers inlcude deputy chief ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma and two ministers, Swatantra Dev Singh and Mohsin Raza.
Pankaj Jaiswal is Bureau Chief, Uttar Pradesh. He covers-analyses politics, and assists Hindustan Times reporters across the state. He has 30 years of experience in print media reporting. Based in Lucknow, he started his journalism career at a national English daily in Kanpur after graduating from Christ Church College. He joined Hindustan Times, Lucknow edition, as part of the launch team in 1997. He’s covered everything from rural distress to science, environment, wildlife, and crime. He has travelled extensively in Uttar Pradesh for rural, development, political, and election reporting. His continued interest in rural issues, rural distress, and development journalism has fetched him a handful of prestigious awards and fellowships. Pankaj is a photojournalist too. He clinched the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting—First Prize in 2009 and Third Prize in 2006—for exposing Bundelkhand’s devastating drought and distress: crop failures, farm suicides, migration, debt, and the injustice of meagre compensation cheques between Rs 10 and Rs 20 to farmers by the government from crop loss. He also has been awarded with Hindustan Times internal 'Journalist of the Month' citation over half a dozen times. His relentless reporting in Hindustan Times pulled the Bundelkhand crisis out of obscurity and forced it into the national spotlight, prompting media and government action on one of India’s most neglected regions. Over a decade, he filed hundreds of hard-hitting stories, travelling repeatedly from Lucknow deep into Bundelkhand. He also received the Special Mention KC Kulish International Award 2009. Pankaj also did long-haul political reporting on the most intense political family feud—’The Yadav Family Feud’—between 2016 and 2022.
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