UP Polls: Former BSP State President & legislative party leader to join SP on Nov 7

In a big boost for SP, expelled BSP leaders Lalji Verma and Ram Achal Rajbhar announced that they will join the Akhilesh Yadav-led party on November 7. Sacked from BSP on Jun 3 for allegedly indulging in anti-party activities during the Panchayat election, Verma and Rajbhar represent Katehari and Akbarpur in the Assembly respectively. While Verma was BSP's founding member and the Legislative Party leader when he was expelled, Rajbhar has served as the party's Uttar Pradesh unit president in the past. Besides this, both leaders were a part of the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet when Mayawati was the CM.

Speaking at the SP headquarters in the presence of Yadav, Verma told the media, “I was in BSP for 25 years and Rajbhar was there for 35 years. We both were dedicated BSP workers and were expelled on June 3". He added, “We are here to invite Akhilesh Ji for ‘Satta Parivartan Janadesh’ rally in Ambedkar Nagar on November 7 wherein we, along with our supporters, will formally join SP". 

At present, the Mayawati-led party has merely 7 MLAs in the Assembly at present as one member resigned after winning the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Meanwhile, Hakim Lal Bind, Vandana Singh, Ramveer Upadhyay, Anil Kumar Singh, Aslam Raini, Aslam Ali, Mujtaba Siddiqui, Hargovind Bhargava and Sushma Patel were expelled ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls in October 2020. They were accused of collaborating with SP in a bid to defeat BSP's candidate Ramji Gautam. 

UP Polls

In the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, BJP won a whopping 312 seats in the 403-member House, whereas BSP could win only 19 seats. On the other hand, the SP-Congress alliance failed to bear fruit as it could win in only 54 constituencies. While this was seen as a mandate for PM Modi as BJP had not declared any CM candidate, Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath was a surprise pick for the post. Though some BJP leaders made conflicting statements over Adityanath's future as the Chief Minister, PM Modi put rest to all speculations by lauding UP's governance model during his successive visits to the state.

While Akhilesh Yadav has ruled out forging an alliance with Congress and BSP, he has remained non-committal about an electoral adjustment with his uncle Shivpal Yadav. So far, SP has forged an alliance with Mahan Dal and Rashtriya Lok Dal. Speaking exclusively to Republic TV on the first day of the 'Samajwadi Vijay Yatra', Yadav opined, "The people are in favour of Samajwadi Party. The people of Uttar Pradesh will defeat BJP because the income of farmers has not been doubled, the youth are unemployed and there are no jobs. The businesses have been destroyed due to the wrong policies of the government". 

(With PTI inputs)