Swami Prasad Maurya headed to SP, will hurt Mayawati in UP polls

Elections in Uttar Pradesh are scheduled for early next year, but the state is already in election mode.

All the major players have begun positioning themselves and poaching rivals. The latest in a series of mergers and desertions is senior BSP leader, Swami Prasad Maurya. On June 22, he quit BSP and is now likely headed to join Samajwadi Party.

Maurya, apart from being the leader of the opposition in the UP Assembly, was also the national general secretary of BSP. He wielded a reasonable amount of influence with the OBC community. His  decision to leave the BSP is likely to weaken the party's bid to win over the vote bank.

SP Maurya's break from the BSP has been on the cards for a while now.

Unlike the rest of BSP, he had been extremely benign in his attitude towards the government in the state Assembly.

He has sided with the Akhilesh Yadav government on crucial issues much to the annoyance of Mayawati, the BSP supremo.

What's worse, he openly accused Mayawati of selling off party tickets to the highest bidder. In doing so, he has also handed over a potent issue to BSP's opponents on the cusp of the polls,

Maurya maintains that he will take a final call on which party he will join, but word in Lucknow circles is that his entry into SP is all but tied up, and a formal announcement will be made closer to the elections.

If he were to join the SP right away, he will have to quit his seat in the UP Assembly.

The SP's political managers are keen on covering their flanks and expanding their reach beyond their traditional vote banks. They have been wooing leaders from among the minorities and the OBCs Wooing SP Maurya and merging with Mukhtar Ansari's Quami Ekta Dal is a part of that strategy.