After Shock Pre-Poll Exits, BJP Welcomes Congress, Samajwadi Party MLAs
NDTV
In the space of 48 hours this week the BJP in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh was hit with six exits, including that of ministers Dara Singh Chauhan and Swami Prasad Maurya
The high-profile exits of two ministers and four MLAs from the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh, less than 30 days before an Assembly election, were followed a day later by two lawmakers - one each from the Congress and the Samajwadi Party - moving the other way, to the ruling BJP.
And, as he did so, the Samajwadi Party's Hariom Yadav, the MLA from Sirsaganj in UP's Firozabad, took a cheap shot at (ex) party boss Akhilesh Yadav, accusing him of running "a party of bootlickers".
"Samajwadi Party is no longer the party of Mulayam Singh Yadav (Akhilesh Yadav's father). It is a party of bootlickers who have surrounded Akhilesh and want to weaken him," he told reporters Thursday.
"Ram Gopal Yadav (the Samajwadi Party's General Secretary and a Rajya Sabha MP) and his son do not want me in the party... they feel I am a threat to their existence," Hariom Yadav alleged.
