Samajwadi Party (SP) and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP), an outfit representing the electorally influential 'Rajbhar' community, would be contesting the forthcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh in an alliance.
SBSP president and former UP minister Om Prakash Rajbhar made the announcement at an event in the state's Mau town on Wednesday. SP too later confirmed the alliance through a post on its official Twitter handle on Thursday.
Rajbhar, whose party enjoyed support among the 'Rajbhar' (an OBC) community, who formed around 4 per cent of the electorate in the state and was deciding factor on over two dozen assembly seats, especially in the eastern UP region, said that the alliance had been forged to defeat the BJP.
''We have joined hands to oust the BJP from power.....BJP has promoted the politics of hatred during its rule in the state in the last four and half years....it can be defeated only if all the opposition parties come together,'' he said.
Although Rajbhar did not reveal the number of seats to be contested by his party, according to the sources, SP was likely to accommodate the former on as many as 14 seats in the eastern UP districts of Azamgarh, Mau, Ballia, Ghazipur among others.
Rajbhar, whose party had contested the 2017 assembly polls in the state in alliance with the BJP, was a minister in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet. He was, however, sacked two years ago after he turned a bitter critic of the saffron party following latter's refusal to accede to his demand of two Lok Sabha seats in UP in 2019 general elections.
Despite parting ways, BJP continued attempts to strike an electoral alliance with Rajbhar in the next year's assembly polls. Several senior BJP leaders had met the SBSP chief. Talks, however, failed allegedly after Rajbhar demanded around a dozen seats.
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