LUCKNOW: The Samajwadi Party on Monday expelled three legislators as they had allegedly voted in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, leading to his victory in Rajya Sabha polls in February last year.
The party took to social media platform X to make an announcement claiming that the three--Gosaiganj MLA Abhay Singh, Gauriganj MLA Rakesh Pratap Singh, and Unchahar MLA and former chief whip Manoj Kumar Pandey--were expelled as they had been working with “communal, divisive, and negative ideologies”, which were against the party’s core values.
The three expelled lawmakers are also among the seven who had voted in favour of BJP candidates during the Rajya Sabha elections in February 2024.
The other four legislators included Bisauli MLA Ashutosh Maurya, Kalpi MLA Vinod Chaturvedi, Chail MLA Puja Pal and Jalalpur MLA Rakesh Pandey.
While Manoj Pandey had formally joined the BJP in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the Lok Sabha polls in 2024 in Rae Bareli, the remaining two -- Abhay Singh and Rakesh Singh -- have not joined the saffron bandwagon formally.
The cross-voting had helped the BJP win 8 out of the 10 seats; retired IAS officer and former Chief Secretary Alok Ranjan was defeated despite the SP having numbers to claim at least three seats.
According to the X post from the SP handle, the “grace period” given to those MLAs for a change of heart had expired.
“There is no room in the party for individuals who act against the welfare or its core ideological framework,” said the post in Hindi.
The SP also accused the three expelled MLAs of supporting forces that are anti-farmer, anti-women, anti-youth, anti-business, anti-employment, and against the rights of the marginalised.
SP spokesperson Fakhrul Hasan Chand said the three legislators had been working against the ideology of PDA [Pichda (backward), Dalit, Alpsankyhak (minority)] and had been speaking in favour of the wrongdoings of the BJP.
“They were given time to improve but unfortunately, they continued to speak against PDA, hence this action was taken by the party,” Chand said.
It may be recalled that the SP had fielded three candidates including incumbent MP Jaya Bachchan, former chief secretary Alok Ranjan and Dalit leader Ramji Lal Suman, during the February 2024 elections to the upper house of Parliament. Only Jaya Bachchan and Ramjilal Suman could sail through. At the time, the rebel MLAs had claimed that the SP leadership hadn’t allowed them to visit the Ram Lalla temple in Ayodhya on an invitation from UP assembly speaker Satish Mahana.