In less than 4 hours, SP’s Shahjahanpur mayor candidate becomes BJP’s nominee

Around 5 pm on Sunday, Archana Verma, 51, joined the BJP in presence of Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak and Finance Minister Suresh Khanna in Lucknow.

While Archana Verma did not speak at the event, Deputy CM Pathak said, “…Samajwadi Party had declared Archana Verma as their (mayoral) candidate in Shahjahanpur, but she was unhappy with the policies of the Samajwadi Party. She couldn’t connect with the SP’s activities. She had issues with the way atrocities were committed against women under the SP governments in the past.”

Suresh Khanna, a nine-time MLA from Shahjahanpur who is said to have played a crucial role in bringing Archana to the BJP fold, said she was “troubled by the factionalism” in the SP.

By 9 pm, the BJP announced a list of seven mayoral candidates with Verma as the party’s candidate for Shahjahanpur mayor poll.

Shahjahanpur mayor post is reserved for the Other Backward Class (OBC) women.

Despite the SP announcing her candidature 12 days ago, she had not filed her nomination papers.

“We will announce a new candidate, and the nomination will be filed on Monday,” SP spokesperson Rajendra Choudhary said as he accused the BJP of misusing power to get Archana Verma. “They (BJP) used the power of being in government to sway our leader to join them,” Choudhary added.

A Samajwadi Party leader in Shahjahanpur said that till late Sunday afternoon, there were no signs that Verma could be leaving the party. “We spoke to her today and everything seemed normal. A programme was held at her residence to mark the death anniversary of her father-in-law and former MP Ram Murtee Singh Verma. District SP leaders were present and she spoke with them. But after the event, she stopped taking our calls and by the evening, we learn from news channels that she has joined the BJP in Lucknow,” said the SP leader. “Everyone knows that the party in power has an edge in local civic elections. Hence, she has gone with the BJP,” added the leader.

Archana Verma, who was elected as a Zila Panchayat chairperson in 2004, hails from a political family. Her father-in-law, the late Ram Murtee Singh Verma, was a two-time MP from Shahjahanpur and a four-time MLA. In 2015, when he was a minister in the SP government, Ram Murtee was booked for the murder of Shahjahanpur-based journalist Jagendra Singh. Archana’s husband Rajesh Kumar Verma unsuccessfully contested the 2022 Assembly elections on an SP ticket from Dadraul in Shahjahanpur district.

Meanwhile, the ruling BJP on Sunday evening announced candidates for seven mayor seats, including Archana Verma for Shahjahanpur. The party has given tickets to Pramila Pandey for Kanpur mayor polls, Girishpati Tripathi for Ayodhya, Harikant Ahluwalia for Meerut, Sunita Dayal for Ghaziabad, Prashant Singhal for Aligarh and Umesh Gautam for Bareilly.

The elections to UP’s 760 urban local bodies – including 17 Municipal Corporations, 199 Nagar Palika Parishads and 544 Nagar Panchayats – will be held in two phases on May 4 and 11.

The counting of votes will take place on May 13.