Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Jan 11: Senior OBC leader and a Cabinet Minister in the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh, Swami Prasad Maurya, scored a hat-trick of changing parties on Tuesday.
In a set-back of sorts to the ruling BJP, Maurya resigned both from the cabinet and the party and promptly switched over to the rival Samajwadi Party of the former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.
Soon after Maurya made his resignation public, the BJP suffered more setbacks with three more MLAs – Roshan Lal Verma, Brijesh Prajapati and Bhagwati Sagar announced their resignations. Maurya also told the media persons that at least dozen more BJP members were expected to resign from the party in the next few days.
Later Maurya boasted that every time he switched sides, he ended up with the party coming to power in the elections. Originally a member of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), He had quit Mayawati’s party for the BJP just before the 2017 UP Assembly elections and has now joined the Samajwadi Party on the verge of another election hinting that he believed that the SP was all set to return to power.
In his resignation letter submitted to the governor Anandiben Patel, Maurya said he was quitting the Yogi government because of its continuous neglect of the poor, backward classes, dalits, youths and unemployed, despite him carrying out his duties with diligence. He claimed that at many occasions, he had attempted to draw the chief minister’s and the party’s attention to these shortcomings but was repeatedly ignored. He also told the media persons that the impact of his and others quitting the BJP would be seen in the assembly election results.
Soon after Maurya submitted his resignation letter to the Governor, he was welcomed into the Samajwadi Party by president Akhilesh Yadav. The other three leaders have travelled the same route – from the BSP to the BJP to Samajwadi Party – with Maurya. His daughter Sanghamitra Maurya is a BJP Lok Sabha MP from Budaun, having defeated the joint SP-BSP candidate Dharmendra Yadav in 2019.
The five-time MLA and sitting legislator from Padrauna in Kushinagar in Purvanchal, Maurya held the labour, employment and Coordination portfolio in the Yogi Adityanath Cabinet. Maurya’s departure comes as big loss to the BJP’s OBC gameplan in east and central U.P. ahead of the 2022 Assembly election as Maurya, who spent most of his life in the BSP, is considered a popular face among the most-backward castes especially the Maurya and Kushwaha communities he leads.
In his short resignation letter, Mr. Maurya, who comes from the Kanshiram stock of Bahujan politics and his known for his sharp rhetoric, said he worked diligently in the government despite “adverse circumstances” and an ideology different from the BJP’s. His entry comes as further boost to the SP, which has already stitched key allies with parties backed by the Maurya, Noniya Chauhan, Kurmi and Rajbhar castes in east U.P. as it attempts to build better acceptability among the numerically crucial and dominant OBCs whom the BJP has been aggressively wooing and grooming with welfare schemes, Hindutva and representation.
Akhilesh Yadav met Maurya soon after his resignation and said he was welcoming a leader who fights for “social justice and equality.” “Samajik nyay ka inquilab hoga, bais mein badlav hoga [There will be a revolution of social justice, there will be a change in 2022],” Yadav tweeted.
Maurya, who started his political career with the Yuva Lok Dal in Prayagraj, then Allahabad, in 1980 had enjoyed a stint as the state general secretary of the Janata Dal from 1991 to 1995 before he was appointed the BSP state general secretary in 1996. He has been a minister in the governments led by BSP chief Mayawati. However, in 2016, following differences with Mayawati on the issue of ticket distribution and her style of functioning, Maurya quit the BSP. Publicly, he accused Mayawati of auctioning tickets, and joined the BJP.
He was among those BJP leaders who had openly refused to name Adityanath as the face of the 2022 campaign.
The exits of the four members come even as the union home minister Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath and top BJP leaders met in Delhi to discuss their election strategy. Reports suggest Maurya may take more ministers and MLAs with him.
“Despite a divergent ideology, I worked with dedication in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet. But because of the grave oppression of Dalits, OBCs, farmers, unemployed and small businessmen, I am resigning,” Maurya wrote in the stinging resignation letter.
Soon after Maurya’s resignation, Keshav Prasad Maurya, Deputy Chief Minister, posted an appeal on Twitter: “I don’t know why Swami Prasad Maurya quit but I appeal to him, don’t quit but let us talk. Decisions taken in haste can backfire.” To this Swami Prasad Maurya quickly retorted: “Why did Mr Maurya not think of this earlier? Why is he remembering me today? Right now everyone will talk but when a dialogue was needed, they did not have time.”