Lucknow: In a jolt to the BJP in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya resigned from the state cabinet. Four other MLAs also announced they were quitting the party. Maurya, who is expected to join the Samajwadi Party (SP), said is he resigning from the Yogi Adityanath cabinet due to ‘gross neglect’ towards Dalits, backwards, farmers, unemployed youth and small traders.
BJP Tindwari MLA Brajesh Prajapati, Tilhar MLA Roshan Lal Varma and Bilhaur MLA Bhagwati Sagar and Vinay Shakya also announced they are leaving the party in support of Maurya. There was no immediate word on the resignations being accepted.
Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya urged the OBC leader to reconsider his move. “I don’t know for what reasons respected Swami Prasad Maurya has tendered his resignation. I appeal to him to sit down for a talk. Decisions taken in a hurry often prove wrong,” Keshav said in a tweet in Hindi.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) P tweeted a photograph of Swami Prasad and Varma with party chief Akhilesh Yadav. “Welcome to the Samajwadi Party. There will be a social justice revolution. There will be a change in 2022,” the SP said in a tweet in Hindi.
In his resignation letter addressed to Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel, Swami said, “I discharged my responsibilities as the Minister for Labour, Employment, and Coordination in the council of Ministers headed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, despite adverse circumstances and ideology.”
Then later on in a tweet in Hindi, Swami stated, “Due to the attitude of gross neglect towards Dalits, backwards, farmers, unemployed youth and small and medium-sized traders, I am resigning from the Yogi ministry of Uttar Pradesh.
Maurya, who hails from the other backward class (OBC) community, had crossed over to the BJP from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) before the 2017 Assembly polls. He is a five-time MLA from Padrauna, while his daughter Sanghmitra Maurya is a BJP MP and represents Badaun in the Lok Sabha.
Yadav welcomed the dissidents. “This time all the oppressed, downtrodden, neglected will unite against the BJP’s insulting and divisive politics. There will be a revolution of SP’s politics of giving respect to all. In 2022, with everyone meeting each other, there will be positive politics of ‘mela hobe’. There will be a historic defeat of the BJP,” Yadav tweeted.
The setback to the ruling party came on a day when a key BJP meeting to discuss the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, now just a month away, was taking place in Delhi. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath and Keshav Prasad attended the meeting.
The Uttar Pradesh polls will be held in seven phases – February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, March 3 and 7. The results will be declared March 10 along with the four other poll-bound states of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
Swami Prasad met reporters in the evening Tuesday. “I am a political person and I will be talking to some political party or the other. With whom I will talk, it will be done after consulting supporters,” Swami Prasad said.
“As soon as I felt angry, I tendered my resignation. I was upset with anti-Dalit, anti-backwards, anti-farmers, anti-youth attitude (of the BJP government). I always spoke at the relevant forum be it the government or the party leadership. I was heard, but it led to nothing,” he added.
Swami Prasad’s departure from the BJP is likely to damage the party’s prospects in at least 20 seats spread across Kushinagar, Pratapgarh, Kanpur Dehat, Banda and Shahjahanpur.
BJP Tilhar MLA Varma reached the Raj Bhavan here with the hard copy of Maurya’s resignation. “I have resigned from the BJP, and I will be with Swami Prasad Maurya. When we used to raise the grievances of the people, we were not heard. We had complained to the chief minister and also to (the state BJP chief) Swatantra Dev Singh. But nothing happened. I will be joining the SP in the next couple of days,” Varma said.
Yadav meanwhile said the state’s people consider his party as an alternative to the BJP. He asserted in this Assembly polls, the SP will wipe out the saffron party.
“The people of the state consider Samajwadi Party (SP) as an alternative to the BJP and this time, they will wipe it out in the Assembly polls and form the SP’s government,” Yadav said while addressing workers at the party headquarters here.
According to a party statement, Yadav also promised that if voted to power, the SP will provide 300 units free electricity, free laptops to the youth and make arrangements for free irrigation for farmers.