Prominent OBC face Swami Prasad Maurya now leaves SP, likely to float own party

Once a confidant of Mayawati, he had joined BJP and was made a minister, before quitting it for SP ahead of 2022 polls; claims he was "marginalised" over controversial remarks on Ramcharitmanas

swami prasad maurya quits samajwadi party

Swami Prasad Maurya (70) had quit the Yogi Adityanath Cabinet ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections (Express photo by Vishal Srivastav)

About a week after resigning from his party post alleging “discrimination” and accusing Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav of ignoring the Pichda, Dalit and Alpasankhyak (PDA), Swami Prasad Maurya quit the party on Tuesday.

Sources said he could float his outfit in New Delhi on February 22, like he had done in 2016 after leaving the BSP.

A prominent non-Yadav OBC face of Uttar Pradesh politics, Maurya (70) had quit the Yogi Adityanath Cabinet ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections and joined the SP. He was known to take on the SP for around two decades, initially as a member of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and later the BJP.

More recently, he hit the headlines last year for calling for the removal of certain verses of the Ramcharitmanas as they had “objectionable language”. He was later booked for hurting religious sentiments.

Also Read | SP national general secretary Swami Prasad Maurya quits party post: ‘Only my remarks called personal’

Once a close confidant of BSP chief Mayawati and a vocal face of the party, Maurya was not only made minister in every BSP government — in 1997, 2002 and 2007 — but was also Leader of Opposition every time the BSP was out of power. He was even made the BSP national general secretary, effectively making him No. 2 to Mayawati in the party hierarchy.

In 2016, while he was Leader of the Opposition, Maurya left the BSP, alleging “auctioning” of party tickets, an allegation refuted by Mayawati who, in turn, alleged that Maurya had quit because his son Utkrist and daughter Sanghmitra did not get tickets for the seats they had allegedly lobbied for.

He then formed his own party and named it the Loktantrik Bahujan Manch.

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Maurya later joined the BJP, just before the 2017 Assembly polls, claiming that he was impressed with the work done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the “weaker sections” of the society.

संज्ञानार्थ,@yadavakhilesh pic.twitter.com/C3RnzRnrPU

— Swami Prasad Maurya (@SwamiPMaurya) February 20, 2024

Maurya won his debut election in 1996 from Dalmau Assembly constituency of Rae Bareli district as a BSP candidate. Even in 2007, when Maurya lost the Assembly polls though the BSP came to power with a majority, Mayawati sent him to the Upper House of the state legislature and made him minister. Over the years, the five-time MLA has established himself as the face of “non-Yadav” OBCs such as the Mauryas, Kushwahas, Shakyas.

Maurya won the 2017 elections as the BJP candidate from Padrauna Assembly seat in Kushinagar district, from where he had been MLA twice in the past. He won that election with over 93,000 votes, defeating BSP’s Javed Iqbal.

Maurya, who claims to have a hold over a large section of “non-Yadav” voters, both in eastern and western UP, has claimed the support of many OBC leaders who moved with him to the BJP and who, he now claims, will leave with him.

His influence can also be ascertained by the fact that he got the BJP to let his daughter Sanghmitra contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Badaun, an SP stronghold where the party had been winning for two decades. Sanghmitra defeated Akhilesh’s cousin Dharmendra Yadav.