LUCKNOW: BSP, marred with a series of desertions by its sitting MPs just ahead of upcoming Lok Sabha elections, got a jolt when Ritesh Pandey, the sitting MP joined the BJP in the presence of UP Deputy CM Brajesh Pathak, BJP UP chief Bhupendra Chaudhury and party’s in-charge Baijayant Panda in New Delhi on Sunday.
However, reacting to the development, BSP chief Mayawati advised all her party MPs to do introspection if they had followed the party norms. Ritesh Pandey had won the Ambedkar Nagar Lok Sabha seat as the BSP candidate by defeating BJP's Mukut Bihari by nearly a lakh votes in the 2019 elections when SP and BSP had contested in alliance. This time, however, the BSP has decided to go solo in the upcoming elections.
While resigning from the BSP’s primary membership, Pandey said that the party did not need him as the leadership had neither been calling him for any meetings for a long time, nor spoken to him. “I made numerous efforts to get in touch with and meet you (Mayawati) and the top leadership of the party but it did not yield any result," Pandey said in his resignation letter. Shortly, after that, Ritesh Pandey joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the national capital.
As per the buzz around Pandey’s decision to switch over to the BJP, he would be given a ticket from his traditional Ambedkar Nagar seat by the BJP to take on SP candidate and sitting MLA Lalji Verma. Ritesh Pandey’s father Rakesh Pandey is a sitting SP MLA from the Jalalpur assembly segment. Rakesh Pandey has also been with the BSP and represented Ambedkar Nagar as the BSP MP from 2007-14 as a BSP MP. He left BSP to join the SP in January 2022, just ahead of UP Assembly elections.
Ritesh Pandey, who pursued his entire higher education abroad, commenced his political career in 2012 by contesting the Jalalpur Assembly seat but losing it to the SP. He was then given a ticket from the same seat in 2017 and won it by defeating the BJP candidate. In 2019, Ritesh was given ticket as SP-BSP alliance candidate from Ambedkar Nagar Lok Sabha seat and won it for the alliance which fell apart immediately after the general elections.
Meanwhile, reacting to Pandey’s decision to join the BJP, BSP chief Mayawati, on Sunday, asked her party MPs to introspect whether they followed the guidelines given to them in the interest of the party. "Along with the BSP, there is also a movement dedicated to the mission of revered Baba Saheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar due to which the policy and working style of this party is different from capitalist parties. Keeping this in mind, the party also fields its candidates in the elections," Mayawati said in a series of posts on 'X' in Hindi.
"The BSP MPs must introspect whether they took proper care of the people in their constituencies. Did they devote full time in their area? Also, did they properly follow the guidelines given from time to time in the interest of the party and the movement?" she said. The BSP chief further said, “In such a situation, is it possible to give tickets to most of the Lok Sabha MPs, especially when they are seen wandering here and there in their interests and are in news for negative reasons? It is unfair for the media to publicise this as a weakness of the party despite knowing all this. The interest of the BSP is above all,” she said.
Earlier, Afzal Ansari, the BSP MP from Ghazipur, defected to the SP and it came to the fore when his name figured in the first list of 16 party candidates released by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav last month. Ansari is the brother of jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari.