Lucknow: OBC leader and former Samajwadi Party MLA Dara Singh Chouhan on Monday joined the BJP at the party office here, giving a boost to the ruling party in Uttar Pradesh ahead of general elections early next year. Chouhan joined the saffron party in the presence of UP Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, ministers Girish Yadav and Baldev Singh Aulakh and state BJP chief Bhupendra Singh Choudhary.
Speaking on the occasion, Chouhan described rejoining the BJP as a “ghar wapsi” and expressed his gratitude towards the party’s central and state leadership.
“Narendra Modi will again become prime minister in 2024 (Lok Sabha elections). No power in the world can stop him,” he said.
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Chouhan, who hails from eastern Uttar Pradesh, said the opposition is not contesting a single seat in ‘Purvanchal’ (eastern UP) and the BJP will win all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
“It is clear from the movement seen in Purvanchal as well as in entire UP that in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, BJP is going to register a big victory under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Not a single seat has been won.” In Purvanchal where the opposition can register a victory,” he said.
He said, “Today, I have returned to the BJP as its soldier. Every worker of the party will work as a soldier to win the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.”
Chouhan appreciated the development works being done by the central and state governments.
Chouhan belongs to the OBC ‘Nonia’ caste, which has a significant presence in more than half a dozen parliamentary seats in eastern Uttar Pradesh, including Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Ghosi, Pratapgah, Azamgarh and Mau.
BJP has already got the support of the second OBC leader Om Prakash RajbharWhose UP Assembly has six MLAs.
Earlier in the day, Chouhan met Uttar Pradesh Assembly Speaker Satish Mahana at his office and submitted his resignation letter.
Chauhan, who was a Samajwadi Party MLA from Ghosi in Mau district, had tendered his resignation from the UP Assembly on Saturday.
An Other Backward Classes (OBC) leader, Chouhan was the Forest and Environment Minister in the previous BJP government led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. He resigned from the Council of Ministers on 12 January 2022 to join the Samajwadi Party.
Chauhan represented Madhuban assembly constituency of Mau district from 2017 to 2022. He also represented the Ghosi seat in the 15th Lok Sabha for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he was defeated by BJP candidate Harinarayan Rajbhar by more than 1.4 lakh votes.
Chouhan had earlier joined the BJP in 2015 and was appointed the president of the party’s OBC Morcha and was fielded from the Madhuban assembly constituency.