The list of turncoats before assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh continues to swell with more leaders switching loyalties every day. The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Samajwadi Party alliance has been given final shape. Both these parties have decided to contest assembly polls together and SP will leave around three dozen seats for RLD.
On Tuesday, several leaders of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) joined Samajwadi Party (SP). These include former Member of Parliament Yashvir Singh, former state minister Manpal Singh, senior leaders Hari Shankar Rajbhar, Munna Yadav and Abdul Hafeez. The BSP leaders joined SP in the presence of party chief and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. A day before Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) legislator from Sitapur, UP, Rakesh Rathore had met with Akhilesh Yadav and pledged his support for SP. Earlier during the Rajya Sabha elections last year, seven BSP MLAs had deserted to join Samajwadi camp. At that time BSP MLAs Aslam Raini, Mayawati expelled Aslam Ali, Muztaba Siddiqui, Hakim Lal Bind, Hargobind Bhargava, Sushma Patel and Vandana Singh from the party. These MLAs were annoyed with party chief for taking support of Bhartiya Janta Party in Rajya Sabha elections.
In July this year senior congress leader and former union minister Jitin Prasad had joined BJP while in August former assembly speaker and sitting BSP legislator Sukhdeo Rajbhar joined hands with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.
At the time of joining of leaders of various parties, SP Chief said the BJP has no respect for its own leaders. Commenting on Tuesday’s programme of foundation laying of University in the name of Raja Mahendra Pratap at Aligarh, Akhilesh Yadav said that till date the university announced in the name of former PM Atal Ji could not be completed. He said that BJP government has failed to initiate any development in Bateshwar, Matura, the native place of Atal Behari Vajpayee. He said that the BJP government only learnt destroying things instead of making new ones. He said that in fact the election symbol of BJP should be bulldozer as it is comfortable at razing things instead of making.
