The Bharatiya Janata Party got a shot in the arm with four sitting legislators of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) joining the outfit on Monday. Reacting to the development, BSP chief Mayawati said that these were `rejected’ MlAs and were denied ticket by the party.
The four BSP MlAs who joined the BJP in the presence of state president Keshav Prasad Maurya are, Mahaveer Rana, Roshan lal Verma, Harvinder Kumar Sahani alias Rommi Sahani and Om Kumar.
With this 14 MlAs from other parties have joined the BJP in the last couple of months and majority of these turncoats are from the BSP.
Mahaveer Rana is an MlA from Behat Assembly seat in Saharanpur while Kumar is a member from Nataur seat of Bijnore. Roshan lal Verma is an MlA from Tilhar seat in Shahjahanpur and Harvinder Kumar Sahani represents the Palia seat in lakhimpur Kheri.
Welcoming the former BSP legislators into the partyfold, Maurya said that the exodus of such large number of legislators show the disenchantment of these leaders with Mayawati’s policies.
“Mayawati has become cash hungry. She wants money for every thing – from distribution of tickets, to giving party posts. She is losing connect with the people,” the BJP leader said.
“These are leaders who have ears to the ground. They know that the BJP has now become the first choice of the people. They know only the BJP has policies to take UP to a new level of development and have therefore joined hands with us,” Maurya said.
When asked whether these legislators would be fielded in the next Assemblypolls, the state BJP chief said that they have not put any condition for joining the party.
“The BJP Parliamentary Board will take a call on giving tickets to them. More senior leaders from other parties would join the BJP very soon,” he said.
Only last month, BSP’s Bala Prasad Awasthi (Mohammadi-lakhimpur) and Rajesh Tripathi (Chillupar-Gorakhpur), Sher Bahadur (Jalalpur) of Samajwadi Party, Sanjay Prasad Jaiswal (Rudauli-Basti), Vijay Dubey (Khadda-Kushinagar) and Madhuri Verma (Nanpara-Bahraich) of the Congress, had joined the Saffron outfit.
later, Congress MlA Pradeep Chaudhary and SP MlA Shyam Prakash too joined the BJP. Earlier, former leader of Opposition in UP Assembly and BSP member Swami Prasad Maurya had joined the BJP and later resigned from the House.