Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister Swami Prasad Maurya’s Son-in-law Joins Samajwadi Party Ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha Polls

The move is being seen as a major blow to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh after party's embarrassing defeat in the Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha Bye-Elections 2018.

Lucknow, Mar 17: Yogi Adityanath Cabinet minister Swami Prasad Maurya’s son-in-law Naval Kishore joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Saturday. The move is being seen as a major blow to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh after party’s embarrassing defeat in the Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha Bye-Elections 2018.

Kishore joined the SP in the presence of party supremo Akhilesh Yadav and Azam Khan.

Swami Prasad Maurya had joined the BJP in 2016 ahead of the Assembly polls. Currently, he is serving as the Minister for Labour, Service planning, Urban employment and Poverty alleviation Departments in Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s government.

The BJP faced defeat against BSP-backed Samajwadi Party in the Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha bye-elections 2018. Two seats – Gorakhpur and Phulpur – were won by the SP candidates by a great margin.

The bypolls on the seats were necessitated after Yogi Adityanath and Keshav Prasad Maurya vacated them on being appointed as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister, respectively.

Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat has been won by SP leader Praveen Kumar Nishad whereas, Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel of the party bagged the Phulpur seat against BJP’s Kaushlendra Singh Patel.