Nine expelled Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) legislators on Tuesday (June 15) met Samajwadi Party chief, Akhilesh Singh Yadav in Lucknow raising speculation about their joining his party.
The BSP, which had in 2017 Assembly poll won only 19 seats, has now only seven legislators left with it. In October last year the party had thrown out seven of them on the eve of Legislative Council election as they were reportedly hobnobbing with Samajwadi Party.
Then again on June 3 the party supremo, Mayawati, kicked out Lalji Verma and Ramachal Rajbhar. Verma, who was a prominent Kurmi face in the party, was the leader of the BSP in the Assembly. He was in the party since 1991.
Ramachal, former BSP UP president, was a prominent Extremely Backward Castes face of the party and had been minister in all the four Mayawati ministries.
They both were accused of indulging in anti-party activities during the recently held Panchayat election. Grape-vine has it that they may both join the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Tuesday’s development has come as a big morale-booster to the Samajwadi Party, which had done reasonably well in the rural bodies’ poll held in April. Independent political analysts are a bit surprised over the way Mayawati is letting things go out of her hands. Her party contested the last Lok Sabha election in alliance with the Samajwadi Party and won ten seats against the latter five. But in the last year Legislative Council election the BSP supported BJP candidates.
However, ever since then, much water has flown down the river Ganga. The farmers’ movement as well as failure to tackle the second wave of Corona virus have greatly weakened the Yogi government in UP. In such a situation, going for an alliance with the BJP may prove suicidal for Mayawati.
