Back in NDA fold, Om Prakash Rajbhar-led SBSP to fight 2024 Lok Sabha polls with BJP

भाजपा और सुभासपा आए साथ

सामाजिक न्याय देश की रक्षा- सुरक्षा, सुशासन वंचितों, शोषितों, पिछड़ों, दलितों, महिलाओं, किसानों, नौजवानों, हर कमजोर वर्ग को सशक्त बनाने के लिए भारतीय जनता पार्टी और सुहेलदेव भारतीय समाज पार्टी मिलकर लड़ेगी। pic.twitter.com/CDMXCc9EAM

— Om Prakash Rajbhar (@oprajbhar) July 16, 2023

“We met Union Home Minister Amit Shah on July 14 in Delhi and discussed various issues and decided to fight the 2024 elections together. A big power will be formed with the coming together of our parties. I want to thank Prime Minster Narendra Modi, Shah, and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for taking us along in the fight for development of the marginalised sections of society,” he told news agency ANI.

The SBSP had earlier fought the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in alliance with the BJP, and Rajbhar was appointed minister for backward classes welfare in the first Yogi Adityanath Cabinet. However, he resigned soon after, following a sit-in protest he staged in Ghazipur demanding the removal of then district magistrate Sanjay Kumar Khatri.

#WATCH | SBSP chief Om Prakash Rajbhar speaks on his decision of joining the NDA alliance

“We met Union Home Minister Amit Shah on July 14 and discussed various issues and decided to fight the 2024 elections together. I want to thank PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, CM Yogi Adityanath… pic.twitter.com/gvI0whp1dl

— ANI (@ANI) July 16, 2023

SBSP had fought the 2022 UP Assembly elections in alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP), but the relationship soured later. Rajbhar had cross-voted in support of the NDA nominee Droupadi Murmu in the 2022 Presidential polls that she went on to win, following which the SP had said that he was free to go wherever he expected to get more respect.

In a letter, the SP then accused Rajbhar of having a “nexus” with the BJP and claimed that he was “working to strengthen the saffron party.” “If you feel that you will get more respect somewhere else, you are free to go there,” the party had said. Since then, Rajbhar’s stand towards BJP gradually softened, even as it looked like he was weighing his future with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), where he had started his career.

Earlier this year, UP BJP president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary had said that Rajbhar was an “old friend”. “No one is untouchable for the BJP. Whoever agrees with the views of the BJP, the party is ready to take him with it. The BJP is a big ocean. Rajbhar is our old friend,” he had said.

On Saturday, SP MLA Dara Singh Chauhan resigned from the UP Assembly with sources saying he would join the BJP soon.