Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expanding its fold in Uttar Pradesh as several leaders of the Opposition including the Samajwadi Party joined hands with the ruling party. According to media reports, 15 leaders from other parties were scheduled to join the BJP today (July 24) at the party headquarters in Uttar Pradesh.
Among them, Samajwadi Party's (SP) Shalini Yadav, Sahab Singh Saini, Sushma Patel, Jagdish Sonkar, Anshul Verma and Rashtriya Lok Dal's (RLD) Rajpal Saini, today (July 24) joined BJP in presence of State party chief Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary, Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak.
Earlier, Om Prakash Rajbhar, the chief of Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party returned to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Here's a brief profile of some leaders:
Shalini Yadav: Shalini joined the Samajwadi Party in 2019 ahead of the Lok Sabha elections from the Congress. She was fielded against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat. SP leader Shalini is the daughter-in-law of late Shyamlal Yadav, former Congress MP from Varanasi and Union minister. She was Congress’s mayoral candidate in Varanasi in 2017 and had secured around 1.14 lakh votes in the election she lost.
Sahib Singh Saini: He was an MLA from Saharanpur. Saini was a close aide to former CM N D Tiwari. The former Samajwadi Party leader was also figured in controversy over having two wives. He had allegedly married the second wife without divorcing his first wife. He belongs to a backward community in western UP.
Sushma Patel: She previously served as a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA and later joined the Samajwadi Party after the 2020 Rajya Sabha elections. She represents the Mungra Badshahpur constituency in the Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh.
Jagdish Sonkar: The Samajwadi Party leader, is a four-time MLA from Machhlishahr constituency in Jaunpur district. Sonkar contested Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election as a Samajwadi Party candidate and defeated his close contestant Anita Rawat from BJP with a margin of 4,179 votes.
Anshul Verma: Former BJP MP from Hardoi joined the Samajwadi Party in 2019 after he was denied a ticket in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. He had represented the Hardoi Lok Sabha constituency, from 2014 to 2019.
Rajpal Saini: The RLD leader was a former BSP MLA and Rajya Sabha MP.
