Hours after resigning from the Bahujan Samaj Party, former MP Ritesh Pandey joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday in the presence of Uttar Pradesh Deputy CM Brajesh Pathak and other BJP leaders including Uttar Pradesh in-charge Baijayant Jay Panda, national general secretary Tarun Chugh, Uttar Pradesh unit chief Bhupendra Singh and Rajya Sabha MP and party's national media in-charge Anil Baluni.
Ritesh Pandey tendered his resignation from the BSP earlier today. He was a Lok Sabha MP from Ambedkar Nagar, Uttar Pradesh.
On joining BJP, former BSP MP Ritesh Pandey said, "I had been working for BSP for the last 15 years, I don't want to comment on thinking and activities of her (Mayawati). I have written in detail about this in my resignation letter. Whatever is happening in my constituency has happened in the last five years. I have taken this decision after evaluating all those things which are happening on the ground be it two industrial areas in the constituency, the Purvanchal expressway, Gorakhpur link expressway, schools, the four-lane road that connects Ambedkar Nagar to Ayodhya's Ram temple along with the way the economic condition of people, farmers, women, Dalits have changed and uplifted their living standards."
Welcoming Pandey into the saffron party, Baluni said a large number of political and social workers want to join the party impressed by its policies and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership.