Double jolts for Mayawati: 1 MP joins the BJP while another makes a hint to the Congress

GG News Bureau

Uttar Pradesh, 25th Feb. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) member Ritesh Pandey today, in the presence of senior leaders and Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak, resigned from the party’s primary membership and joined the BJP.

Pandey represents Ambedkar Nagar in the Lok Sabha as an MP.

He had resigned from the Bahujan Samaj Party earlier in the day, and he had captioned his resignation letter on X.

https://x.com/mpriteshpandey/status/1761621243210641629?s=20

Speaking to a news agency, Pandey stated that he had spent the previous fifteen years working for the BSP and that he was unwilling to comment on Mayawati, the party supremo’s “thinking and activities.”

“My resignation letter goes into great detail about this. Everything that has occurred in my constituency over the past five years has happened. I have made this decision after considering everything that is actually occurring, including the two industrial areas within the constituency, the Purvanchal and Gorakhpur-link expressways, schools, the four-lane road connecting Ambedkar Nagar to the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, and the ways in which people’s economic circumstances have improved and raised the standard of living for farmers, women, and Dalits,” he continued.

Pandey was one of the eight Members of Parliament that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had lunch with earlier this month in the Parliament canteen.

On February 9, the surprise lunch consisted of ragi laddus and vegetarian thalis for the Prime Minister and the Members of Parliament.

Since 2019, Pandey has served as the representative for Ambedkar Nagar. Prior to being elected as an MP, he served as the Jalalpur MLA from 2017 to 2019.

In a related development, sources say that BSP MP Shyam Singh Yadav from Jaunpur, who is scheduled to participate in today’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Agra, is also expected to join the Congress. The most recent events transpired nearly a week following BSP chief Mayawati’s denial of coalition rumors ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

She declared that her party will run an independent campaign in the next elections.