Samajwadi Party has an old habit of horse trading, said Bahujan Samaj Party general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra after five MLAs of Mayawati-led BSP met SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday in Lucknow, fueling speculations of them joining the party soon. The MLAs had earlier met Yadav on Tuesday, a meeting arranged by MLC Udayveer Singh.
It is also speculated that two more BSP legislators may follow the suit and join the Akhilesh Yadav-led party.
Mishra further said that the BSP will take action against the rebel MLAs.
“The politics of horse trading is an old habit of Samajwadi Party and whatever message they (SP) have given through this it is against themselves, the entire nation will condemn this. You will soon know about what action we take on the rebel MLAs,” said Mishra while speaking to media in Unnao.
Earlier in the day, five BSP MLAs claimed that their signatures were forged on the nomination papers filed by BSP Rajya Sabha candidate Ramji Gautam. Later on, these rebel MLAs went to meet Akhilesh Yadav at SP Headquarters in Lucknow.
Rebel MLAs Aslam Chaudhary, Aslam Rainee, Mujtaba Siddiqui, Hakim Lal Bind and Govind Jatav held a closed-door meeting with the SP supremo on Wednesday to seek tickets from the party. A day ago, Chaudhary’s wife had also joined the SP.
The Samajwadi Party had nominated Prakash Bajaj as an independent candidate, following which voting for one seat was considered almost certain.
The Election Commission had announced the last date for filing nominations for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh as October 27. The nomination papers will be examined a day after the submission. The legislators can withdraw their nominations latest by November 2 and voting will be held on November 9, from 9 am to 4 pm. The votes will be counted from 5 pm and results will be declared on the same day.
So far, the BJP has officially fielded eight candidates including Hardeep Singh Puri, Arun Singh, Haridwar Dubey, Brijlal, Neeraj Shekhar, Geeta Shakya, BL Verma and Seema Dwivedi. Samajwadi Party has once again fielded Ram Gopal Yadav. The BSP, despite not having required numbers, has fielded Ramji Gautam.D