Senior leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh have supported Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s decision on Monday to sack Suheldeo Bhartiya Samaj Party president Om Prakash Rajbhar from the Cabinet, saying it is a right decision taken a bit late.
In a statement issued here, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said Om Prakash Rajbhar is not a leader of backwards but of his family.
‘’Rajbhar only took benefits for his family and staged a drama for the backward community. The entire backwards were with Narendra Modi in the (parliamentary) election,” he said.
Maurya said despite the SBSP president hurling vitriol at the BJP and the Chief Minister time and again, the BJP observed the alliance dharma. “All efforts were made to make him see the reason but he refused. The fact is Om Prakash Rajbhar became MLA because of BJP but he never acknowledged it,” the Deputy Chief Minister said in the statement.
Maurya said, ‘’Though the action should have been taken earlier, we believed that he would mend his ways and work for the uplift of the backwards. But it never happened. It was an appropriate time to show the real face of Rajbhar to the people.’’
Sources claim that the BJP leadership had made up mind to sack Rajbhar last year after a member of the SBSP cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha election. But following intervention of BJP president Amit Shah, the decision was shelved.
The reason was that had Rajbhar been sacked from the Cabinet at that time, he would have gone to the people, claiming himself to be a martyr. To avoid that piquant situation, the SBSP president was given a long rope.
The SBSP has four MLAs in the state assembly.
Maurya said that five senior members of SBSP were accommodated in different corporations and Om Prakash Rajbhar’s son was made chairman of a state-run corporation.
He said that despite enjoying government patronage, the SBSP president’s behaviour was not acceptable.
Meanwhile, BJP state president Mahendra Nath Pandey said his party always honoured and respected smaller parties but the SBSP president violated all norms of coalition dharma forcing the Chief Minister to take such a harsh decision.
Welcoming the decision of Yogi Adityanath to sack Rajbhar, Pandey said even after being a Cabinet minister, the SBSP chief continued to give statements against the government and violated Constitutional norms.
“The BJP had given all respect to Rajbhar after being inducted in the Cabinet in March 2017, but he demanded more facilities for his family members,” he said.