UP Assembly polls: 'No respect for grassroot workers in Samajwadi Party', says party MLA after joining BJP

Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, Samajwadi Party's (SP) sitting MLA Subhash Rai on Monday joined Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and said that there is no respect for the grassroot workers in SP.

Subhash Rai, MLA from Jalalpur, was inducted into BJP by the party's Uttar Pradesh chief Swatantra Dev Singh at New Delhi on Monday.

Speaking to ANI, Rai said, "The grassroots workers are no longer respected in the Samajwadi Party. It is no more the old Samajwadi Party. This is the reason that today I have left SP and rejoined BJP. I was earlier with BJP for 15 years. In the last five years, the BJP government did a great job. The work has been done to uplift the downtrodden. BJP is going to form the government again by winning more than 300 seats in Uttar Pradesh."


Asked about him joining BJP after Aparna Yadav and Hariom Yadav, Rai said, "There is no respect for the grassroot workers in SP, so people are leaving the party. Under the current government, there has been a development in all sections of society. Take the example of teachers recruitment. No such village is left in which at least three to four people recruited as assistant teachers through the TET exam are not from poor, Dalit or minority families. Nothing much happened in previous governments."

The daughter-in-law of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, Aparana Yadav, had joined BJP last week. Sirsaganj (Firozabad) MLA Hariom Yadav, who is also a close relative of the SP patriarch, also joined BJP a few days ago.

Meanwhile, elections to the 403 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases starting February 10. The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, and March 3 and 7 in seven phases. The counting of votes will take place on March 10.