On Monday, 24th July 2023, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) inducted several prominent leaders of opposition parties, including former ministers, former MPs and former MLAs, into the party along with their supporters. BJP’s Uttar Pradesh state unit’s president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary and two deputy chief ministers of the Uttar Pradesh government, Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak inducted several prominent leaders into the party at the party’s state headquarters. Party’s state media in-charge Manish Dikshit informed the media on Monday.
The leaders who joined BJP include former Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) MP Rajpal Saini (Muzaffarnagar), former minister Sahab Singh Saini (Saharanpur), former MP Anshul Verma (Hardoi), former SP MLA Sushma Patel (Jaunpur), former SP candidate Shalini Yadav from Varanasi, former minister Jagdish Sonkar (Jaunpur), former MLA Gulab Saroj (Jaunpur), former Congress media chairman Rajiv Bakshi (Lucknow) Former BSP chairman Gangadhar Kushwaha from Agra, former SP zila panchayat president Jitendra Mishra from Hamirpur, former SP zila panchayat president Satyapal Yadav from Hapur, and former SP zila panchayat president Sunita Yadav from Hapur.
Most leaders joining the BJP on Monday come from the Other Backward Class (OBC) community. Recently, prominent OBC leaders joined the BJP-led alliance. Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief and former minister Om Prakash Rajbhar joined the National Democratic Alliance and former minister and Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA Dara Singh Chauhan (Ghosi-Mau) joined the BJP. Many other OBC leaders joining the BJP on Monday is considered a major setback from the ruling party to the opposition.
Former Uttar Pradesh minister Dara Singh Chauhan, who had previously resigned from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) ahead of the state assembly elections in 2022, made headlines again as he resigned from the assembly on 15th July 2023. He joined BJP.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) leader OP Rajbhar returned on Sunday, July 16, to the fold of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The move was seen as a significant blow to the opposition’s ‘unity’.
