BJP exodus: Three Ministers, 11 MLAs quit in last 72 hours

Three ministers and eleven MLAs have handed over their resignations to the ruling party in Uttar Pradesh. It is speculated that most of the leaders who have quit are set to join the Samajwadi Party, thus the BJP high command is in shambles as the caste equation and arithmetics on which BJP performed so well in the last election has been devastated.

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh):Uttar Pradesh has witnessed a political upheaval since the announcement of the Moral Code of Conduct on January 8. The Bharatiya Janata Party seems to be most affected by this political hullabaloo as three ministers and eleven MLAs have handed over their resignations to the ruling party.

The BJP ministers who resigned include- Swami Prasad Maurya, Dara Singh Chauhan, and Dharam Singh Saini. Meanwhile, eleven BJP MLAs who resigned include- Bhagwati Sagar, Roshan Lal Verma, Vinay Shakya, Avtar Singh Bhadana, Brajesh Prajapati, Mukesh Verma, Bala Prasad Awasthi, Rakesh Rathod, Jay Choubey, Radha Krishna Sharma, and Madhuri Verma.

Leaders on resignation

Mukesh Verma, one of the MLA's who quit the party, said, "Swami Prasad Maurya is our leader. We will support whatever decision he takes. Many other leaders will join us in the coming days," after he posted his resignation letter on Twitter and headed towards the residence of Swami Prasad Maurya, the Pied Piper of the ongoing exodus.

In his resignation, Verma, an OBC leader, shared similar concerns about how BJP was neglecting the backward classes in Uttar Pradesh. Slamming the BJP led UP government, Verma openly supported Maurya, calling him the "voice of the oppressed". He further added that he will continue the 'fight for justice' under Other Backward Classes (OBC) leader Swami Prasad Maurya. There are speculations that Verma will join the Samajwadi Party (SP).

Dara Singh Chauhan too slammed BJP for not doing justice to the backward classes in the state. Chauhan claimed he had repeatedly raised the issues of the Dalits, farmers, and unemployed while in the party, but was neglected.

"The BJP government was formed in Uttar Pradesh with the blessings of the Dalits and the people belonging to backward classes. But they did not get justice. The youth did not get employment and the farmers too are in a pitiable condition today," he said.

Caste equation of Uttar Pradesh

Currently, it is speculated that most of the leaders who have quit are set to join the Samajwadi Party (SP), thus the BJP high command is in shambles as the caste equation and arithmetics on which BJP performed so well in the last election has been devastated.

The leaders who have resigned are either OBC's or Brahmins and the OBC's are considered to be the largest vote bank in Uttar Pradesh, which is around 50 percent. In this, about 35 percent of voters are from non-Yadav OBCs, 4-6 percent are from Lodh, 3 percent from Kumhar, and the rest 6 percent voters include Kushwaha, Maurya, Shakya, and Saini.

Meanwhile, the votes of the Lodh community are important in about 25 districts of western Uttar Pradesh in the districts like Farrukhabad, Badaun, Hathras, Bulandshahr, Agra, Etah, Etawah, Kasganj, Amroha. BJP has been considering it as its fixed vote bank till now. On the other hand, Shakya, Maurya, Kushwaha have a good vote bank in about 13 districts of the state including Auraiya, Etawah, Jalaun, Jhansi, Kannauj, Kanpur Dehat, and Etah.

Turmoil between Keshav Maurya and Swami Prasad Maurya

In the UP Assembly Elections 2017, Keshav Prasad Maurya took the support of Swami Prasad Maurya to win over the OBC votes of the state. Swami Prasad was hopeful that he would be appointed as the Deputy Chief Minister as he had an influence over 150 seats in the Awadh region which also gave strength to BJP but Keshav Prasad Maurya took all the credit for this. He was accepted as the main leader of OBC in the party.

The internal differences between Swami Prasad and Keshav Prasad increased in the last few years and the speculation that the tickets of about two dozen MLAs who were the supporters of Swami Prasad will be declined seats which led to the uproar in the Swami faction thus the resignation game began.

Sources reveal that Swami Prasad Maurya hoped that the pressure for his resignation would be so high that the top leadership of the BJP would themselves talk to him and he would be able to save the seats. Perhaps this was the reason why he took till January 14 to reveal his future plans regarding joining the Samajwadi Party.

After his resignation, Swami posed with SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav. Akhilesh grabbed the opportunity and shared the photo on social media. He further tweets, "This time all the oppressed, downtrodden, neglected will be united and there will be a revolution of respectful politics of SP against the divisive and insulting politics of BJP. It will be a historic defeat for BJP!"

Meanwhile, the Brahmin MLAs were also now seen talking about Yogi's not listening to them.

Akhilesh is eyeing the vote bank of Rajbhar, Brahmin, Jat, Kurmi, Maurya-Kushwaha, Nonia Chauhan, and the Pasi communities. Akhilesh is working on different castes under a different strategy.

Meanwhile, BJP has started a damage control exercise. BJP State President Swatantradev Singh has shared the photo of the Prime Minister washing the feet of the labourers. The tweet said that BJP has always been with the backward and deprived sections.

Read:People consider Samajwadi Party as alternative to BJP, says Akhilesh