Rukamani Devi Nishad, the sister of late Phoolan Devi, and four-time Lok Sabha member Ramakant Yadav joined the Samajwadi Party in the presence of party president Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday.
The once ‘Bandit Queen’ Phoolan Devi had turned politician and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Mirzapur on Samajwadi Party ticket before she was murdered in Delhi in 2001. 
Rukamani Devi Nishad left the Pragatisheel Manav Party, a minor outfit, to join the SP.
Along with Nishad, Ramakant Yadav, a compulsive party-hopper, also returned to the Samajwadi Party fold. He had been hobnobbing with the SP had was expelled from the Congress on Thursday. He had joined the Congress ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Ramakant Yadav had won the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat on Samajwadi Party ticket in 1996 and 1999, and then retained the seat as Bahujan Samaj Party candidate in 2004 and as Bharatiya Janata Party candidate in 2009. In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he had switched sides and joined the Congress after being denied ticket by the BJP.
After joining the SP, Rukamani Devi Nishad said, “I am leaving behind my Pragatisheel Manav Party and it feels like coming back to my home,”
Calling Akhilesh Yadav a younger brother, Nishad said the SP chief should be strengthened to enable the party win the 2022 UP Assembly polls and form a government.
Ramakant Yadav said, “I am overwhelmed and overjoyed at this homecoming. I will be Akhilesh Yadav’s soldier now”.
Rukamani Devi belongs to the boatmen’s Nishad community which is among the Other Backward Classes category and has substantial population in several pockets in Uttar Pradesh and the SP wants to leverage her presence in the party to target the community’s votes.
Akhilesh Yadav sounded upbeat after the two joined his party. “The way leaders from other parties are joining the SP and increasing the SP family, it is quite apparent that SP will be able to oust the BJP from UP in 2022 UP Assembly polls,” he said.
Akhilesh Yadav said Ramakant’s return to SP would strengthen the party.
Ramakant belongs to Azamgarh, a seat represented by Akhilesh Yadav in the present Lok Sabha. His brother Umakant Yadav is a former BSP MP and his son Arun Kumar Yadav is a BJP MLA from Phoolpur Pawai in Azamgarh.
Known more for his criminal antecedents than his political achievements, Ramakant Yadav, 62, has travelled through several political parties before returning “home”.