Setback to opposition as various leaders from SP, RLD, Congress and BSP join BJP | Lucknow News

LUCKNOW: The SP-RLD alliance suffered a major setback on Monday after a host of their senior party leaders jumped ship and defected to the BJP along with their supporters.

Those who joined the BJP included SP leaders Shalini Yadav, who contested against PM Narendra Modi from Varanasi in 2019; Anshul Verma, who turned rebel against the BJP in 2019 and joined the SP; former cabinet minister in the Akhilesh Yadav government Sahab Singh Saini; former SP MLAs Sushma Patel and Jagdish Sonkar (both from Jaunpur); and former RLD legislator Rajpal Singh Saini.
The leaders joined the BJP in the presence of UP BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary and the two deputy CMs, Brajesh Pathak and Keshav Prasad Maurya, at the state party office.

This is the second time in less than 10 days that a key leader from the opposition camp has joined the saffron bandwagon, bolstering the poll narrative around the BJP in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Last week, SP MLA Dara Singh Chauhan resigned from the UP assembly and joined the BJP. Chauhan had rebelled against the BJP and joined the SP ahead of the 2022 assembly elections. He managed to win the Ghosi assembly seat in Mau. Former SP ally SBSP too returned to the BJP-led NDA fold, in a development that was seen as augmenting the saffron outfit’s foothold amongst the OBC Rajbhar community in the east of UP.
Chaudhary said that the political leaders of the other parties joined the BJP after getting influenced by the welfare programmes initiated by the party under the leadership of PM Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath. He said the inductees will strengthen PM Modi’s `Vijay Rath’ and the BJP’s ‘Vikas Yatra’ in the days to come.
“We all have vowed to win all 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2024 and ensure Modi becomes PM for the third consecutive time,” he said.