Uttar Pradesh Polls: After Swami Prasad Maurya, another minister Dara Singh Chauhan resigns from Yogi Adityanath government

Uttar Pradesh Polls: After Swami Prasad Maurya, another minister Dara Singh Chauhan resigns from Yogi Adityanath government

In his terse resignation letter to the Governor, Chauhan said that the Yogi government had failed to address the aspirations of Dalits, OBCs and weaker sections of society and was apathetic towards the problems of the youth.

Rashmi SharmaUpdated: Wednesday, January 12, 2022, 11:14 PM IST
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The trickle is becoming a shower. A day after OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya and four MLAs resigned from Yogi Adityanath’s Cabinet in Uttar Pradesh, the ruling BJP has received another jolt.

On Wednesday, the UP Forest and Environment Minister, Dara Singh Chauhan, resigned from the cabinet.

He had joined the BJP in 2015, after years in the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). He was made the head of the BJP's OBC Morcha and then a minister, after he won the 2017 assembly election.

"It cannot be that I say something on one day and then resign the next day. I hoped my voice would be heard sooner or later. But when things came to the point that no one was willing to listen to me, I had to resign," Chauhan told NDTV when asked why he was quitting just before the elections.

‘‘I worked with dedication but I am resigning as I am hurt by this government's oppressive attitude towards the backward, deprived sections, Dalits, farmers and unemployed youth and the neglect of quota for the backward and Dalits," Chauhan wrote in his resignation letter, using almost the same language as Swami Prasad Maurya.

The BJP, instead of trying to address the dissidence within its ranks, has started scouring for disgruntled MLAs. On Thursday, the party managed to wean away two sitting legislators, one each from the Samajwadi Party and the Congress.

ARREST WARRANT: Incidentally, a day after his exit, an arrest warrant was issued against Swami Prasad Maurya in a seven-year-old case, when the latter had allegedly made objectionable remarks about deities.

An earlier warrant for his arrest was put on hold by the Allahabad High court in 2016. Since then there have been many hearings in the case. On January 6, a Sultanpur court had asked him to appear on Wednesday. When he did not, the court renewed his warrant, a report in NDTV said.

Reacting to the departure, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya has asked Chauhan to reconsider the decision. He said it hurts if someone in the family is being misguided and takes a wrong decision.

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