Ex-BJP ally Om Prakash Rajbhar claims Maharashtra-like shake up in Uttar Pradesh in offing

Former BJP alliance partner and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) president Om Prakash Rajbhar on Monday said that a Maharashtra-like shake up would soon take place in Uttar Pradesh also and claimed that several Samajwadi Party (SP) leaders were likely to join the Yogi Adityanath ministry in its next cabinet expansion.

Rajbhar, a former UP minister, also said that BSP supremo Mayawati would emerge as the key factor in the state in the next Lok Sabha polls and that he was ready to join hands with her to counter the BJP in UP.

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''Several senior SP leaders, who are upset with Akhilesh Yadav (party president) , are likely to join the BJP government...we may see them taking oath as ministers,'' the SBSP chief, whose party had contested the 2017 assembly elections in UP in alliance with the BJP and wielded influence over the 'Rajbhar' community (OBC) which were in sizable numbers in around half a dozen districts in the eastern UP region, said.

The SBSP chief, however, did not reveal the names of the SP leaders and MLAs, who, according to him, could join the UP government.

Rajbhar also claimed that the Congress was ready to ally with the BSP in UP. ''My party will also join if such an alliance (Congress and BSP) is forged in UP.....Mayawati will prove to be the gamechanger in the state,'' he said.

''We may see a new front in UP in the next LS polls,'' he added.

Rajbhar's remarks came close on the heels of reports of a meeting between some Congress and BSP leaders to 'explore' possibilities of alliance in the forthcoming assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and later in UP in the 2024 LS elections.

Although the BSP leaders denied that any such meeting took place, Rajbhar claimed that Congress was 'ready' to ally with the BSP.