Swami Prasad Maurya & Dharam Singh Saini joins Samajwadi Party

|HT|

Swami Prasad Maurya and Dharam Singh Saini, former ministers in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet, joined the Samajwadi Party in the presence of its chief Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow on Friday. Among the former legislators of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) present at the event were Bhagwati Sagar, Vinay Shakya, Mukesh Verma and Roshan Lal Verma.

Sagar represents the Bilhaur constituency in Kanpur, Shakya is a legislator from Bidhuna, Roshan Lal Verma from Tilhar and Mukesh Verma, BJP MLA from Shikohabad joined the Samajwadi Party. Chaudhary Amar Singh, an MLA from BJP ally Apna Dal (S), from Shoratganj was also welcomed by Yadav.

Yadav put a red turban (SP colour) on Maurya and Saini while welcoming them to the party.

Speaking at the event, Saini said, “We all are joining SP today and to save the Constitution, democracy and the interest of Dalits, backwards. We will make you the next CM.” “We will make you take the UP CM's oath on March 10 and India's PM in 2024,” he added.

Maurya said it was the day of the confluence of ‘Samajwad’ (socialism) and Ambedkarvaad (BR Ambedkar's philosophy).

While two of the three BJP ministers who recently quit the ruling were present on the stage, the third one, Dara Singh Chauhan, was not seen.

At least eight BJP MLAs, including three ministers, have resigned over the past few days.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)