Treating the civic elections as a semi-final to the Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party is working on a strategy of putting pressure on opposition parties by bringing caste-based leaders of other parties, particularly those of Samajwadi Party, into the party fold.

“The influx of senior SP leaders into BJP is an indicator that the party is working on a plan to reduce SP to a non-entity before the Lok Sabha elections. The leaders, who belong to a particular caste, have been made to join the party,” a senior BJP leader told ‘The Pioneer’ here on Tuesday.

In the last 15 days, over 50 leaders have been successfully brought into the BJP fold with around 30 leaders of opposition parties from Kanpur-Bundelkhand region joining the party.

The process of inducting SP leaders into the BJP started from Farrukhabad when former minister Narendra Singh Yadav, his daughter and district panchayat chairperson Priyanka Yadav, and former Lok Sabha candidate Sachin Yadav deserted SP and joined the BJP.

After that, more than 25 SP leaders in Kanpur Nagar have joined the BJP. Most of them are district and state level leaders.

Last week a large number of SP leaders led by former minister and former Lok Sabha candidate Hemraj Verma from Pilibhit joined the BJP. Among others who joined the BJP were Sandhya Singh Patel, the block pramukh of Ganj-Moradabad, and Sheela Singh, the state vice-president of SP Mahila Sabha. She was also a member of the State Commission for Women.

The Kanpur-Bundelkhand region has 52 assembly and 11 Lok Sabha constituencies. The BJP is working on a strategy to completely eliminate the dominance of the SP in this region to win all the Lok Sabha seats in 2024. The BJP knows that the SP has more influence than other opposition parties among the backward castes in the Rohilkhand and adjoining areas and therefore it is working as a plan to increase its caste base.

Not only SP, even leaders from other parties like Bahujan Samaj Party have joined the BJP. Former state president of BSP, Dr KK Sachan has joined the BJP. Mayawati loyalist Govind Bhati joined the BJP last week, giving a dent to the BSP in western UP.

Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak, who was instrumental in bringing these leaders into the BJP fold, said that a large number of leaders of other parties were taking membership of the BJP after being influenced by the public welfare policies of the BJP government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

“Where is the opposition? They are only spreading canard against the BJP while we are working for the welfare of the masses. The leaders who work at the ground level know who is working for the welfare of people and join our party,” he said.