In a massive blow to BJP and Yogi Adityanath just before the Uttar Pradesh goes to polls in February, a minister and four MLAs quit and joined the party’s main challenger, Akhilesh Yadav.
The news came to light after Swami Prasad Maurya, a top minister in the Yogi Adityanath government, posted his resignation letter on Twitter.
In the hours that followed, four more MLAs close to him – Roshan Lal Verma, Brijesh Prajapati, Bhagwati Sagar and Vinay Shakya – announced their resignations.
Swami Prasad Maurya is a powerful OBC (Other Backward Class) leader and five-time MLA. He joined the BJP in 2016 after quitting Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). He was a key figure to chart out the BJP’s plans to draw a critical section of OBC voters and counter Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party.
The other three defectors have travelled the same route as Maurya – from the BSP to the BJP to Samajwadi Party.
“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,” Maurya wrote in the stinging resignation letter.
He was also heard speaking to reporters: “What impact my exit will have on the BJP will be obvious after the 2022 assembly election.”
Akhilesh Yadav later tweeted a photograph with Maurya, welcoming him and his supporters to the Samajwadi Party.
The exits reinforced the view that resentment in the ranks against Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is an issue the BJP has left unaddressed. Sources say two months ago, he had complained to Union Home Minister Amit Shah about Yogi Adityanath. But nothing reportedly came of it.
According to sources, Amit Shah has tasked Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya with persuading Maurya and his supporters to return.
Keshav Prasad Maurya’s first appeal was very public. “I don’t know why Swami Prasad Maurya quit but I appeal to him, don’t quit but let us talk. Decisions taken in haste can backfire,” he said in a tweet that did not impress the defectors.
“Maurya will take more than a dozen leaders with him,” said Sharad Pawar, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader while announcing a joint campaign with Akhilesh Yadav in UP. “Change is coming to UP. Today Maurya has resigned and 13 MLAs are going with him. In the coming days you will see and more people will quit,” he said in Mumbai.
The exits in Lucknow began as Yogi Adityanath and top BJP leaders arrived in Delhi to discuss Uttar Pradesh election strategy.
Maurya is the MLA from Padrauna in eastern Uttar Pradesh. His daughter Sanghamitra is a BJP MP from UP
