Lucknow: The 2019 general election has been full of controversies and political turnarounds. The latest to be added in this list is the request of the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister (CM), Yogi Adityanath, to UP’s governor, Ram Naik, for sacking the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief, OP Rajbhar, from the cabinet.
According to News18, Adityanath took the decision of sacking the estranged BJP ally, OP Rajbhar, a day after he predicted a massive victory of the SP-BSP alliance in eastern UP. A tweet from the UP CM’s official handle said that the UP chief minister had requested the Governor to dismiss Rajbhar, the minister for backward class welfare and ‘divyangjan’ empowerment.
Notably, a month ago on April 13, Rajbhar had visited Adityanath at 03.00 am in the morning, in order to give his resignation which wasn’t accepted by the CM.
Rajbhar has repeatedly accused Adityanath and the BJP of neglecting the allies and the backwards castes. He has even alleged that the BJP was misusing his party’s flag during the Prime Minister’s roadshows.
The BJP-SBSP relation grew bitter when the BJP refused to give Rajbhar’s party the seats of his choice in this election. Rajbhar had fielded 39 candidates for seats in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh phases.
Rajbhar, who has a considerable clout in eastern UP, asserted that his party has not campaigned for the saffron party in these elections. “We are not with them now. We only asked for the Ghosi seat, which the BJP did not give us.”
Just a few hours before the exit polls, Rajbhar had said that the BJP was under an impression that it could win all 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state and 400 seats in the country “but the reality will dawn on May 23.” He even claimed that the SP-BSP-RLD alliance will win more seats than BJP in the state. Dismissing the possibility of Narendra Modi being re-elected as the Prime Minister, Rajbhar said that India’s next PM will be “Dalit ki beti” (daughter of the Dalits), referring to BSP supremo Mayawati.
SBSP chief has lend its support to the SP-BSP alliance on three seats- Bansgaon, Sant Kabir Nagar and Maharajganj. Besides this, he has also extended support to the Congress candidate Lalitesh Pati Tripathi from the Mirzapur seat which was being contested by the BJP ally, Apna Dal (Sonelal) convenor and union minister Anupriya Patel.
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