Major Setback To BJP At UP, As Swami Prasad Resigns: 5 Points

Lucknow: Just before the Uttar Pradesh elections Senior leader Swami Prasad Maurya today quit as minister and joined the Samajwadi Party of Akhilesh Yadav. This move from Swami Prasad Maurya has taken a toll over BJP’s Yogi Adityanath and Congress for the upcoming elections. In a major setback for the BJP weeks ahead of the state assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, a key minister along with three MLAs has quit the party.

1. Swami Prasad Maurya, UP’s Minister of labour, employment & coordination, resigned from Yogi Adityanath’s cabinet today. He posted his resignation letter on Twitter. “Despite a divergent ideology, I worked with dedication in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet. But because of the grave oppression of Dalits, OBCs, farmers, unemployed and small businessmen, I am resigning,” he said.
2. After resigning, Mr Maurya met Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav. Mr Yadav tweeted a photograph with Mr Maurya, welcoming him and his supporters to the Samajwadi Party. “I warmly welcome Swami Prasad Maurya, a leader who fights for social justice and equality, and all his supporters. There will be a revolution in social justice. Change is coming in 2022,” Mr Yadav tweeted in Hindi.
3. Mr Maurya, a veteran politician and five-term MLA, had quit the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 2016, accusing the party of running a “money for ticket” syndicate. Ms Mayawati had denied the allegations. Mr Maurya then formed his own organisation called Loktantrik Bahujan Manch and was appointed a cabinet minister in Yogi Adityanath’s government in 2017.
4. Swami Prasad Maurya’s daughter Sanghmitra Maurya is a BJP MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun.
5. Mr Maurya is a powerful OBC (Other Backward Class) leader representing the Padrauna constituency in eastern Uttar Pradesh. In a warning to the BJP, he told reporters, “What impact my exit will have on the BJP will be obvious after the 2022 assembly election.”