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Sulking UP minister shoots warning over Mayawati bungalow for Shivpal
The allotment of the bungalow on Friday was seen as an attempt to prop Shivpal further up against the Samajwadi Party ahead of the Lok Sabha election next year when the BJP hopes to power a return at the Centre.
The allotment of a big Lucknow bungalow, previously used by Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, to politician Shivpal Yadav appears to have sent BJP ally and Uttar Pradesh minister Omprakash Rajbhar into a sulk.
Rajbhar, who heads the backward classes welfare ministry, has said the bungalow in Lucknow’s posh Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg was allotted by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government to Samajwadi Secular Morcha chief Shivpal Yadav in an attempt to weaken the Samajwadi Party.
But, the minister warned, the hurried decision would have “a negative impact on the BJP.”
At the heart of Rajbhar’s unhappiness is the fact that his demand for a government building as a party office has been ignored.
“I had been asking for a government bungalow for office since March 2017 but don’t know why they were afraid of granting me one...Yesterday, a decision was taken to allot the bungalow vacated by Mayawati to Shivpalji for his party,” he said on Saturday in Ballia.
Shivpal is the estranged uncle of the former chief minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav.
The allotment of the bungalow on Friday was seen as an attempt to prop Shivpal further up against the Samajwadi Party ahead of the Lok Sabha election next year when the BJP hopes to power a return at the Centre by replicating its spectacular performance in Uttar Pradesh in 2014.
The SP is the chief rival of the BJP in the northern state. The BJP had won 71 seats and its ally Apna Dal won two of the total 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The SP had won five and the Congress two.
“The BJP will get to know its status in the upcoming general election if it doesn’t change its way of functioning,” Rajbhar said.
Rajbhar had categorically denied having any truck with Shivpal’s SSM after the two met in August. “We had met. It was a courtesy meeting, but I have nothing to do with his secular morcha,” he had said.
Rajbhar was invited at an event in Lucknow organised by SSM on Sunday, but he did not turn up.
He alleged that bureaucrats are not obeying instructions of chief minister Yogi Adityanath. He also appealed to his party workers to join a rally in large numbers in Lucknow on October 27 to help him “take a further decision.”
This is not the first time that Rajbhar is peeved with the BJP government and the bigger ally. He has been blowing hot and cold ever since the government came to power in Uttar Pradesh.
He has frequently accused the government of ignoring the backward classes. He had attacked the Adityanath and Modi governments over the issues of reservation for backwards, law and order situation, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, etc.
The BJP considered SBSP an important ally ahead of the 2017 polls as it was consolidating the backward classes votes for itself. The SBSP is a political outfit with its clout in eastern UP districts and was founded by Rajbhar in 2002.
The BJP has been engaged in intensive attempts to consolidate backward castes and Dalits away from SP and BSP. The backward classes have been a major vote bank of the SP while Dalits of the BSP.
Rajbhar is an eminent backward class leader in eastern UP and acting against him might be detrimental to the BJP.
