Swami Prasad Maurya, backward caste leader and a minister in the chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s cabinet in U.P. who had switched over to the Samajwadi Party (SP), will contest from Fazilpur assembly constituency in Kushinagar district in the coming elections.
Maurya had hit headlines last month when he accused the BJP of ignoring the backward caste community in U.P. and joined SP of former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. Since 2009, he had represented Padrauna seat in U.P. assembly and his sudden switch to Fazilpur is being attributed to the entry of former Union Minister and Congress leader R P N Singh in the BJP who hails from Padrauna and had won the seat earlier.
Voting in Kushinagar will take place on March 3 in the seven-phased assembly elections which end on March 7 and the counting of votes will be taken up on March 10. A keen electoral tussle will be seen in Purvanchal, the eastern belt of U.P. which sends 167 legislators to the state assembly.
However, Maurya was quick to dismiss such assertions, saying it was the decision of the party keeping in mind the changed equations. RPN Singh’s entry into the BJP was seen as a move by the Lotus party to somewhat make up from the losses it suffered due to abrupt exit of OBC leaders and a few ministers on the eve of assembly elections in U.P. Interestingly, Maurya had switched over from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to the BJP just before 2017 assembly polls in the state when BJP romped home with a record 312 seats in the 403-member assembly.
In his campaign, Maurya has been highlighting the plight of the farmers, status of backward castes under the BJP regime for whom the ruling party had done nothing and claimed that the tally of the BJP will come down substantially in the coming assembly polls. Incidentally, Maurya’s daughter Sanghmitra is BJP MP from Badaun in U.P.
In another twist, SP nominated Pallavi Patel from Sirathu seat in Prayagraj to contest against Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya. Pallavi Patel is the sister of Anupriya Patel who heads Apna Dal. Pallavi Patel has split from her sister and formed her own party.