Ex-minister Dara Singh Chauhan, Apna Dal MLA join Samajwadi Party

Key OBC leader from the 'Poorvanchal' (eastern) region in Uttar Pradesh and former minister Dara Singh Chauhan, who had resigned from the Yogi Adityanath cabinet a few days back, joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Sunday.

Apna Dal, an ally of the BJP, MLA from Pratapgarh district R K Verma, an OBC, also joined the SP with Chauhan.

Speaking to reporters later, Chauhan attacked chief minister Yogi Adityanath and accused him of 'ignoring' the interests of the backwards and dalit communities during his tenure. ''Adityanath had become chief minister with the help of the backwards and dalits but his government never gave the two communities their rightful dues,'' he added.

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''This government prefers to count the animals but the OBCs and dalits.....it seems that the animals are more important for the chief minister,'' he remarked.

Welcoming Chauhan and Verma to his party, SP president Akhilesh Yadav said that his party would undertake caste census if it formed the next government in the state after the forthcoming assembly elections.

Chauhan was the third BJP minister to have joined the SP in the past few days. Earlier influential OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya and Dharam Singh Saini had joined the SP with six saffron party MLAs.

Chauhan, who was considered to be an influential OBC leader, especially in the 'pooravanchal' region of the state including Azamgarh, Mau, Ghazipur and Ballia districts. He represents Madhuban asseat in Mau district.

So far three BJP ministers and eight MLAs, most of them hailing from the OBC community, had so far left the saffron party in the past few days and joined the SP altering the electoral scene in the politically crucial state.

Akhilesh had said on Saturday that his party would not admit any more BJP deserters.

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