Big blow to BJP in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh

Lucknow: In a jolt to the BJP in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya resigned from the State Cabinet, while three other MLAs announced they are quitting the party.

Maurya, who is expected to join the Samajwadi Party (SP), said he is resigning from the Yogi Adityanath Cabinet due to "gross neglect" towards Dalits, backwards, farmers, unemployed youth and small traders.

BJP Tindwari MLA Brajesh Prajapati, Tilhar MLA Roshan Lal Varma and Bilhaur MLA Bhagwati Sagar have also announced they are leaving the party in support of Maurya. There was no immediate word on the resignations being accepted. On Twitter, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya urged the leader to reconsider his move. "I don't know for what reasons respected Swami Prasad Maurya has tendered his resignation. I appeal to him to sit down for a talk. Decisions taken in a hurry often prove wrong," he said in a tweet in Hindi. The SP tweeted a photograph of Swami Prasad Maurya and Varma with party chief Akhilesh Yadav, and said in Hindi, "Welcome to the Samajwadi Party. There will be a social justice revolution. There will be a change in 2022."

In his resignation letter addressed to Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel, Maurya said, "I discharged my responsibilities as the minister for labour, employment, and coordination in the council of ministers headed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, despite adverse circumstances and ideology." Maurya, who hails from the other backward class (OBC) community, had crossed over to the BJP from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) before the 2017 Assembly polls.