A blow to SP: OBC MLA Dara Singh Chauhan resigns, likely to join BJP

The Other Backward Class (OBC) leader belongs to the Lonia-Chauhan community, having their stronghold in eastern UP’s Azamgarh and Varanasi divisions. And thus, the BJP hopes Chauhan will bring non-Yadav OBC voters of eastern UP to the party fold, BJP sources said.

A senior BJP leader told The Indian Express, “Chauhan will join BJP very soon, but it has not been decided yet from which constituency he will contest the Lok Sabha elections. The party can also send him to the Rajya Sabha or induct him into the state cabinet.”

Another BJP leader said the party might field Chauhan from Ghosi or Ghazipur Lok Sabha constituency, which the BSP won in alliance with the SP in 2019.

Before joining the SP in January 2022, Chauhan was UP minister for Forests, Environment and Animal Husbandry in the previous Adityanath government. He resigned from the BJP government a day after another OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya left the party and e joined the SP expecting it would return to power in the state in 2022.

Welcoming Chauhan to his party fold, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had described him as “a soldier of social justice”.

Before his appointment as the Governor of Bihar in July 2019, Phagu Chauhan was the BJP’s OBC face in the eastern region. He was also an MLA from the Ghosi Assembly seat. In the 2022 polls, his son Ram Bilas Chauhan was elected as an MLA from the Madhuban seat in Mau district on a BJP ticket. Making an effort to consolidate its OBC vote base, the BJP is also in talks with Om Prakash Rajbhar of the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP). “When Rajbhar, Dara Singh Chauhan and Swami Prasad Maurya joined hands with the SP for the 2022 polls, it caused damage to the BJP in the region. The return of Rajbhar and Chauhan will strengthen the party again,” said a BJP leader.

UP Assembly sources, meanwhile, said that Speaker Satish Mahana has accepted Chauhan’s resignation, adding that the OBC leader has, however, not cited any reason in the resignation letter. In his resignation letter, Chauhan said, “I Dara Singh Chauhan, who is a member of the current Legislative Assembly from 354-Ghosi in Mau district, tender resignation from the membership of the Legislative Assembly.”

According to Samajwadi Party sources, as the SP failed to come to power, Chauhan was feeling uncomfortable in the party. He had been inactive for the past several months, giving an indication he might switch over to the BJP, they said. SP sources claimed that Chauhan was in talks with the BJP for the past few weeks and had even invited senior BJP leaders, including BJP state president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary and Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya, to a family function in February.

Terming Chauhan’s move a “breach of trust”, SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said that Chauhan did not talk to the party leadership before resigning. “Akhilesh Ji trusted him and gave him a ticket in the 2022 polls. Chauhan does not have a personal following. He became an MLA because of Akhilesh Ji. He resigned because BJP encourages betrayal. When the bypoll takes place on his seat, SP will win it again,” Chaudhary added.

Chauhan had started his political career with the BSP and the party sent him to the Rajya Sabha in 1996. In 2000, he joined the SP, which sent him to the Upper House for the second time. He was also the SP’s national executive member. In 2009, he joined the BSP and contested the Ghosi seat but lost to the BJP. After the BSP “expelled” him, Chauhan joined the BJP in 2015. A few months later, he impressed BJP leader Amit Shah by arranging a huge crowd at a rally held at the polytechnic ground in Azamgarh. Shah was the chief guest at the rally.

A few days later, Chauhan was appointed the national president of the BJP OBC Morcha. In 2017, the BJP gave him a ticket from Madhuban and he won, becoming a minister in the previous Yogi Adityanath government.

“Chauhan was, however, not comfortable with BJP workers. He used to move with those associated with him since his BSP days, thus upsetting BJP cadres. The BJP had guessed his intention (to join SP), and hence, he was not engaged in the Jan Vishwas Yatra, ahead of the 2022 polls, when it passed through Mau district,” a Mau-based BJP leader said.

On November 22, 2021, Chauhan wished SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav his birthday in a social media post and described him as “Garib aur mazloomon ka messiah, pichdon ka karndhaar aur pure awaam ki awaz (The messiah of the poor and oppressed, and the voice of backwards and the entire nation”. Chauhan was, however, not available for comments.