SP MLA quits, likely to join BJP soon

Lucknow, July 14 (IANS) Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA Dara Singh Chauhan resigned from the Uttar Pradesh assembly on Saturday.

Sources said he is set to join the BJP soon.

Chauhan was cabinet minister in the previous Yogi Adityanath government but had resigned ahead of 2022 Assembly elections and joined the SP.

An OBC leader from eastern UP, he was elected from the Ghosi seat in Mau district on the SP’s poll symbol.

Speaker Satish Mahana has accepted Chauhan’s resignation, sources added. He has not cited any reason for the move in his resignation letter.

A senior BJP leader said, “Dara Singh Chauhan will join the BJP very soon. But it has not been decided yet from which constituency he will contest the Lok Sabha elections.”

Sources said that the party may field Chauhan from Ghosi Lok Sabha constituency from where the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had won in 2019 while contesting in alliance with the SP.

Chauhan was Cabinet minister for Forests, Environment and Animal Husbandry in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet from 2017 to 2022. He resigned from the cabinet on January 12, 2022.

In his resignation letter, Chauhan had then said that he was upset with the BJP government sidelining the backward classes, the deprived, Dalits, farmers and unemployed youths.