Lucknow: Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections, the prominent OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya quit BJP and joined the Samajwadi Party on Friday. Maurya currently was the cabinet minister for Labour, Employment, and Co-ordination in Yogi Adityanath led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh.
He represents the Padrauna constituency of Uttar Pradesh and was with BSP before joining BJP in 2016.
Five BJP MLAs, namely – Bhagwati Prasad Sagar (Bilhaur in Kanpur Constituency), Roshan Lal Verma (Tilhar in Shahjahanpur Constituency), Vinay Shakya (Bidhuna in Auraiya Constituency), Brijesh Prajapati (Tindwari in Bahraich Constituency) and Mukesh Verma (Shikohabad in Firozabad Constituency). One Apna Dal (Sonelal) MLA Amar Singh Chaudhary from Shohratgarh also joined the Samajwadi Party in the presence of Akhilesh Yadav.
Uttar Pradesh will be going to a seven-phase poll from February 10th. And the recent developments in the Uttar Pradesh political arena points towards the rising influence of the Samajwadi Party under Akhilesh Yadav in the non-Yadav OBC community.
