Even though the Congress is not the part of the nexus between Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the alliance left 2 Lok Sabha seats for the Grand Old Party in Uttar Pradesh. This goodwill gesture was soon reciprocated by the Congress Party and as an act of ‘gratitude’, the Grand Old Party poached ten ex-leaders of the BSP.
According to media reports, 10 ex-leaders of the BSP in Madhya Pradesh joined Congress on Sunday. Among the ten leaders, there are two state presidents of BSP and one former MP. Some of these leaders accused BSP supremo Mayawati of running the party in an undemocratic and bizarre manner.
So Con is breaking BSP https://t.co/82rHPf7pBv
— Suresh Nakhua (Modi Ka Parivar) 🇮🇳 (@SureshNakhua) March 10, 2019
The leaders who switched over to Congress from BSP include Devdutt Soni, Babulal Pahalwan, Ravindra Patel, Pohap Chaudhary, Manju Sarraf, Komal Prasad, Vinod Rai, Ramsevak Damle, and former state BSP presidents Pradeep Ahirwar and Satyaprakash Jatav. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and the state Congress president Kamal Nath was also present at the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) meeting when the leaders joined the Grand Old Party.
Prior to this, BSP leader and former MP Devraj Singh Patel had also joined the Congress. Accusing party supremo Mayawati of dictatorial conduct, Devraj Singh said, “Party president Mayawati doesn’t give any importance to any party office-bearers of Madhya Pradesh. She operates through and believes only state in-charge leader sent from Uttar Pradesh. Even if the state-in-charge leaders tell a lie she would believe them. There is no democracy in the party”.
Singh further added, “Situation in MP has come to a sorry pass. The party’s base is dwindling due to bad decisions of the party president Mayawati based on wrong feedback of the state in-charge leaders from time to time. I was only party MP from Madhya Pradesh from 2009 to 2014 but even I couldn’t talk to her. Such is the state of dictatorship in the party.”
Congratulating the BSP leaders for joining the Grand Old party, state Congress spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi said, “Congress’ door is open for those who believe in its ideology. It will not affect the BSP’s support to the Congress government as Congress doesn’t believe in poaching any leader from any party.”
Earlier in February, while addressing a press conference in Lucknow, Akhilesh Yadav made a sarcastic jibe on the Grand Old Party stating that it was already a part of the SP-BSP alliance and the seat sharing for the 2019 polls was finalised. “We have given them two seats to fight – Raebareli and Amethi,” Akhilesh Yadav added.
The inclusion of expelled leaders from other parties seems to be the only way left for Rahul-led party to stay relevant in the current political scenario. This kind of backstabbing that has become standard modus operandi for the Grand Old Party and this is why parties are not interested in joining hands with the INC.
