In yet another blow to the candidature of Yashwant Sinha, the opposition candidate in the presidential election, Samajwadi Party ally Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar has announced to support the National Democratic Alliance candidate Droupadi Murmu.
The SBSP has six MLAs in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly. He said that the decision to support Murmu was taken after discussions with party leaders and office-bearers.
“I was invited by UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to the dinner hosted in honour of the NDA presidential candidate on July 8. I attended the dinner and got an opportunity to meet and have a discussion with Droupadi Murmu. I promised her to have a discussion with my MLAs on her request to support her. Over the days I also had a word with Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Following these discussions we have decided to support the NDA candidate,” Rajbhar said in a press conference here on Friday.
On the question of parting ways with the Samajwadi Party, Rajbhar said, “We are still in alliance with the Samajwadi Party but in the presidential poll our party will support NDA candidate Murmu.”
Rajbhar may however face resistance within his party as three of his MLAs are Samajwadi Party leaders who had contested the election on the symbol of SBSP. It is not clear as of now whether these three MLAs will follow the diktat of the SBSP chief.
OP Rajbhar, a former ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party who switched sides in 2019, is the latest to break ranks with the opposition after former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren earlier this week.
Uddhav Thackeray, who initially supported opposition presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha, had switched in favour of Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday. The move is widely seen as an attempt to stop the growing rift within the party that led to the collapse of Uddhav Thackeray’s government just weeks earlier.
Two days later, going against its partner Congress, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) joined the list of non-NDA parties backing Droupadi Murmu in Monday's presidential election, citing her tribal identity.
The president is elected by the members of the electoral college consisting of elected members of both Houses of Parliament and elected members of the legislative assemblies of all states, including the National Capital Territory of Delhi and the Union Territory of Puducherry. The votes are cast via ballot paper in order of preferences for the candidates, the least voted of whom gets eliminated one by one. While the value of votes of every MP is fixed and the value of votes of MLAs differ based on their states' population.