Facing stiff competition from rival Samajwadi Party in the coming UP assembly elections, ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) is on a hunting spree. The party is eyeing on the sitting legislators of opposition parties and luring them to bring to its fold. On Wednesday BJP got a shot in the arm with four sitting Samajwadi Party legislative council members joining it. SP council member Ravi Shankar Singh Pappu, CP Chand, Rama Niranjan and Narendra Bhati switched loyalties to join BJP. All of these were elected to the legislative council from the local bodies electorate.
According to a senior BJP leader few more legislators from SP and BSP might join in few days. BSP legislative council member Brijesh Kumar Singh has met senior BJP leaders and is likely to join party next week. Few more SP council members are in touch with BJP leaders and might join it in days to come.
According to a SP leader, the elections for 30 odd council members coming from local bodies electorate is likely to be held next month. Since government machinery has a major role to play in these elections, the sitting council members are opting to join BJP.
It may be mentioned that with elections round the corner the number of turncoats have been rising in UP. Last month sitting BJP MLA from Sitapur, Rakesh Rathore had joined SP. Similarly SP legislator from Gazipur, Subhash Pasi had joined BJP.
Besides these two, the leader of BSP legislators in the state assembly Lalji Verma had joined SP along with few senior party leaders.
