Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh): Two more legislators, belonging to the Apna Dal, an ally of the BJP, have resigned just ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections scheduled to take place next month.
Following his resignation, Chaudhary Amar Singh said: "This government is a liar and no development has been done. I met Akhilesh Yadav and will join him. Soon more people will join us." He is likely to contest his Shohratgarh seat in Siddhartha Nagar on an SP ticket. The other Apna Dal MLA R.K. Verma, who represents the Vishwanath Ganj seat of Pratapgarh, also announced that he is leaving the party.
Both the legislators blamed the Yogi Adityanath government for their leaving the alliance. With the two new resignations, a total of 12 MLAs from the ruling alliance in Uttar Pradesh have quit, blaming the state government of being against the backward. Ten BJP MLAs, including three ministers, have quit the BJP since Tuesday.
It started with the exit of top minister Swami Prasad Maurya, followed by three MLAs close to him on the same day - Bhagwati Sagar, Roshan Lal Verma, and Brijesh Prajapati. On Wednesday, another state minister Dara Singh Chauhan and MLA Avatar Singh Bhadana quit. Bhadana joined the RLD, an ally of the SP.
On Thursday, Minister Dharam Singh Saini, and three other BJP MLAs - Vinay Shakya, Mukesh Verma and Bala Awasthi - also left the party. All three ministers who have quit are key OBC (Other Backward Class) leaders, claiming that the interests of the community are being neglected.
Leaders on resignation
On Thursday, Mukesh Verma, one of the MLAs who quit the party, said, "Swami Prasad Maurya is our leader. We will support whatever decision he takes. Many other leaders will join us in the coming days," after he posted his resignation letter on Twitter and headed towards the residence of Swami Prasad Maurya, the Pied Piper of the ongoing exodus.
In his resignation, Verma, an OBC leader, shared similar concerns about how BJP was neglecting the backward classes in Uttar Pradesh. Slamming the BJP led UP government, Verma openly supported Maurya, calling him the "voice of the oppressed". He further added that he will continue the 'fight for justice' under Other Backward Classes (OBC) leader Swami Prasad Maurya. There are speculations that Verma will join the Samajwadi Party (SP).
Dara Singh Chauhan too slammed BJP for not doing justice to the backward classes in the state. Chauhan claimed he had repeatedly raised the issues of the Dalits, farmers, and unemployed while in the party, but was neglected.
Caste equation of Uttar Pradesh
Currently, it is speculated that most of the leaders who have quit are set to join the Samajwadi Party (SP), thus the BJP high command is in shambles as the caste equation and arithmetics on which BJP performed so well in the last election has been devastated.
The leaders who have resigned are either OBC's or Brahmins and the OBC's are considered to be the largest vote bank in Uttar Pradesh, which is around 50 percent. In this, about 35 percent of voters are from non-Yadav OBCs, 4-6 percent are from Lodh, 3 percent from Kumhar, and the rest 6 percent voters include Kushwaha, Maurya, Shakya, and Saini.
Meanwhile, the votes of the Lodh community are important in about 25 districts of western Uttar Pradesh in the districts like Farrukhabad, Badaun, Hathras, Bulandshahr, Agra, Etah, Etawah, Kasganj, Amroha. BJP has been considering it as its fixed vote bank till now. On the other hand, Shakya, Maurya, Kushwaha have a good vote bank in about 13 districts of the state including Auraiya, Etawah, Jalaun, Jhansi, Kannauj, Kanpur Dehat, and Etah.
Turmoil between Keshav Maurya and Swami Prasad Maurya
In the UP Assembly Elections 2017, Keshav Prasad Maurya took the support of Swami Prasad Maurya to win over the OBC votes of the state. Swami Prasad was hopeful that he would be appointed as the Deputy Chief Minister as he had an influence over 150 seats in the Awadh region which also gave strength to BJP but Keshav Prasad Maurya took all the credit for this. He was accepted as the main leader of OBC in the party.
The internal differences between Swami Prasad and Keshav Prasad increased in the last few years and the speculation that the tickets of about two dozen MLAs who were the supporters of Swami Prasad will be declined seats which led to the uproar in the Swami faction thus the resignation game began.
Sources reveal that Swami Prasad Maurya hoped that the pressure for his resignation would be so high that the top leadership of the BJP would themselves talk to him and he would be able to save the seats. Perhaps this was the reason why he took till January 14 to reveal his future plans regarding joining the Samajwadi Party.
After his resignation, Swami posed with SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav. Akhilesh grabbed the opportunity and shared the photo on social media. He further tweets, "This time all the oppressed, downtrodden, neglected will be united and there will be a revolution of respectful politics of SP against the divisive and insulting politics of BJP. It will be a historic defeat for BJP!"
Meanwhile, the Brahmin MLAs were also now seen talking about Yogi's not listening to them.
Akhilesh is eyeing the vote bank of Rajbhar, Brahmin, Jat, Kurmi, Maurya-Kushwaha, Nonia Chauhan, and the Pasi communities. Akhilesh is working on different castes under a different strategy.
Meanwhile, BJP has started a damage control exercise. BJP State President Swatantradev Singh has shared the photo of the Prime Minister washing the feet of the labourers. The tweet said that BJP has always been with the backward and deprived sections.
Read: BJP finalises nominees for 172 seats in UP polls, CM, his deputies to contest
