New Delhi: Days after resigning from the BJP, former minister in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet and a BJP legislator from the Madhuban constituency, Dara Singh Chauhan, formally joined the Samajwadi Party in the presence of its national president Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow on Sunday.
Amid a flurry of resignations from the ruling party, Dara Singh Chauhan is the third minister, after Swami Prasad Maurya and Dharam Singh Saini to leave the saffron camp for the Yadav-led party ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections.
Another sitting MLA of the BJP ally Apna Dal-S, RK Verma, also joined the Samajwadi Party during the day.
When the BJP government was formed in the year 2017, a slogan of 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas' was raised. However, the development was only for a few people here. The rest were left to fend for themselves. Today there is a conspiracy to make slaves by giving ration, Chauhan said.
Speaking on making Yadav the next chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Chauhan said that in 2017, the BJP had taken votes from the people belonging to backward communities, but did not give anything in return. Therefore, all those belonging to the backward communities are shifting to the Samajwadi Party.
Congratulating those who joined his party, Yadav said that they would fight in a manner to defeat and oust the BJP in the upcoming state polls.
An influential OBC leader, who had also served as a Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MP, Dara Singh Chauhan was the Environment and Forests Minister in Chief Minister Adityanath's cabinet till he resigned on Wednesday.