Six sitting legislators from BSP and one from ruling BJP joined Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday. The move comes a day after senior Congress leader and former Rajya Sabha member Harendra Malik and his son former MLA Pankaj Malik joined SP. The development comes ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections scheduled to be held early next year.
On Saturday BJP legislator from Sitapur Sadar, Rakesh Rathore, joined SP in the presence of party chief Akhilesh Yadav. BSP legislators Sushma Patel from Mungra Badshahpur, Hargobind Bhargava from Sidhauli Sitapur, Aslam Chaudhury from Dhaulana Hapur, Aslam Raini from Shrawasti, Hakim Lal Bind from Handiya Prayagraj and Muztaba Siddiqui from Pratappur Prayagraj also joined SP. All these legislators were suspended from party after they had voted SP candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections early this year. Another BSP legislator and former minister Lalji Verma has also quit party to join SP.
Akhilesh Yadav slams government
After the leaders joined, party chief Akhilesh Yadav mocked BJP saying that they would now change the slogan of party from Hamara Pariwar BJP Pariwar to Hamara Pariwar, Bhagta Pariwar. He did not spare Congress and said that there is no difference between the two national parties. Both follow the same policies and traditions. According to a senior Samajwadi leader, more legislators from BSP and BJP might join SP in the coming days.
Meanwhile Akhilesh Yadav accused the state government of failing to fulfil the promises they had made to the farmers in their election manifesto. "It seems that BJP made its manifesto and threw it in the trash because they never turned through its pages. They forgot their own manifesto. They had promised that by 2022, the income of farmers will be doubled and a roadmap will be prepared for that. Today the farmer in Uttar Pradesh wants to ask, till when their incomes will be doubled?," said Akhilesh.
Yadav also alleged that the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in the state has failed to make timely payments to the Sugarcane farmers as they had promised in their manifesto. He also raised the issue of paddy procurement on Minimum Support Price (MSP) and said "the government has failed to provide the MSP to the farmers. Moreover, they have also failed those farmers who suffered losses due to heavy rains by not giving them any compensation for that".
He also alleged that BJP had betrayed the people in Bundelkhand, a region that he said that 'put its trust in BJP'. "Bundelkhand is still lying dry, a drought-like situation is there," he added. Taking further shots at BJP, he questioned them that what it had done with the 20 thousand crore rupees it had planned to use for setting up an irrigation fund.
With agencies inputs
