Party hopping gains momentum in election-bound Uttar Pradesh

The next Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh may be a good seven months away, but party hopping has already started in the state with as many as a dozen sitting legislators switching loyalties within a span of two days.

Six legislators from the Congress, Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) joined the BJP on Thursday. Four sitting legislators from the Congress and the SP had crossed over to the BSP on Wednesday.

Those, who switched loyalties on Thursday included Sanjay Jaiswal, Madhuri Verma and Vijay Dubey of the Congress, Balaprasad Awasthi and Rajesh Tripathi of the BSP and Sher Bahadur of the SP.

All of them were expelled from their respective parties on charges of voting for rival nominees in the recently concluded polls for the Rajya Sabha and the state Legislative Council in violation of party whips.

Former BSP leader and sitting MLA Swami Prasad Maurya had joined the BJP with another party legislator a few days back.

The BJP sources claimed that two more sitting legislators from the SP may join the saffron party in the next few days.

Four Muslim legislators, including three from the Congress and one from SP, had joined the BSP on Wednesday. Interestingly all the main political players here claimed that leaders from their rivals were in touch with and could switch allegiance in the coming
days.

Seeking to make light of the defections, SP leaders here said that those, who had left the party, had been told that they will not be renominated.

 “They may have been promised nomination by the BJP,” said an SP leader.
Congress leaders also said that the defecting leaders were already expelled and there was no question of giving them tickets for the next Assembly polls.

“They knew that they will not get nomination,” said a senior state Congress leader
here.