Swami Prasad Maurya, quits BJP

Minister Swami Prasad Maurya resigned from the state government on Tuesday, dealing a blow to the BJP ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. The minister is expected to join Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, according to media reports (SP).

"Due to the attitude of extreme indifference towards Dalits, backward, farmers, unemployed young, and small and medium-sized traders, I am leaving from the council of ministers of Yogi (Adityanath) of UP," Maurya wrote in a tweet in Hindi, explaining his decision.

Yadav welcomed Maurya into the SP fold with a snapshot of the two of them on Twitter.

"Despite difficult ('vipreet') conditions and ideology," Maurya wrote in his resignation letter to Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel, "I discharged my obligations as the minister for labour, employment, and coordination in the council of ministers headed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath."

Maurya, a member of a lower caste, joined the BJP before the 2017 assembly elections. He is a member of the Padrauna Legislative Assembly. Sanghmitra Maurya, his daughter, is a BJP MP who represents Badaun in the Lok Sabha. 

The elections in Uttar Pradesh will take place in seven phases: on February 10th, 14, 20, 23, 27, March 3rd, and March 7th. Along with the four other poll-bound states of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa, and Manipur, the results will be announced on March 10.