Lucknow: Two former members of Parliament — one from the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and one from Samajwadi Get together (SP) — two former ministers within the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP authorities in Uttar Pradesh, and an SP chief who had fought the 2019 Lok Sabha elections towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi, had been amongst 18 politicians to hitch the Bharatiya Janata Get together Monday.
Monday’s inductions come every week after former UP MLA Dara Singh Chauhan switched sides, to hitch the BJP from the SP.
The 18 new inductions in UP comprised 11 from the SP, 5 from the Bahujan Samaj Get together (BSP) and one every from the Congress and the RLD.
The brand new members had been welcomed to the get together by UP deputy chief ministers Brajesh Pathak and Keshav Maurya, and BJP’s UP state president Bhupendra Chaudhary.
The 2 former MPs inducted had been Rajpal Saini from the RLD and Anshul Verma from the SP, whereas the 2 former ministers inducted had been Sahab Singh Saini and Jagdish Sonkar.
Aside from them, two former SP MLAs joined the BJP’s ranks — Sushma Patel and Gulab Saroj.
One of many key leaders to hitch the BJP fold Monday was Shalini Yadav, daughter-in-law of the late Shyamlal Yadav, a former Congress MP from Varanasi and deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
Shalini had fought the Varanasi mayoral election in 2017 for the Congress and was the runner-up. Forward of the 2019 normal election, she joined the SP and fought towards PM Modi from the Varanasi constituency.
Others to have joined the BJP Monday, embrace a former state Congress media chairman, former meeting aspirants from BSP and different events.
The brand new inductions are a part of the BJP’s persevering with OBC and SC outreach in UP forward of the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in accordance with political observers.
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4 OBC leaders and three SC leaders
Whereas 4 of the brand new joinees — Yadav, Rajpal Saini, Sahab Singh Saini and Patel — are from the opposite backward class (OBC) class, Verma, Sonkar and Saroj are from the Scheduled Caste (SC) class.
Having began his political profession with the BSP, Rajpal Saini was elected as an MLA from the get together in 2002 and was despatched to the Rajya Sabha in 2010. He later joined the RLD the place he served because the nationwide president of the Samajik Nyay Manch, a social justice platform.
Sahab Singh Saini, a two-time SP MLA and a former minister within the Akhilesh Yadav authorities, joined the BJP alongside along with his supporters. Saini had shaped the Rashtriya Krantikari Morcha in 2022 in Uttarakhand, earlier than returning to lively politics in UP’s Saharanpur.
Sushma Patel additionally began her profession with the BSP and was elected as an MLA from Mungra Badshahpur seat in Jaunpur in 2017. She had switched to the SP final yr.
Sonkar was denied a ticket by the SP for the 2022 UP elections, resulting in protests and resignations from his loyalists. He had earlier received the Shahganj meeting seat twice in 2002 and 2007, and later went on to win the Machhlishahr constituency in 2012 and 2017.
Verma, a BJP member until 2019, had made information for handing over his resignation to a safety guard deployed on the BJP’s Lucknow workplace. He joined the SP forward of the final elections that yr after being denied a ticket by the BJP for a similar. Verma had in 2014 received the Lok Sabha election for the BJP from Hardoi seat.
Like Sonkar, Saroj too was denied a ticket by the SP from the Kerakat constituency in UP in 2022.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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