Bahujan Samaj Party leader RS Kushwaha and former party MP Kadir Rana joined the Samajwadi Party on Sunday ahead of the Uttar Pradesh polls due next year.
RS Kushwaha, former state president of the BSP, said, "Today I am joining the Samajwadi Party along with my friends and accepting the ideology of the party. The government has made tall claims in the last five years but none of them has been fulfilled either by the UP government or by the Centre."
Kushwaha recently had a long meeting with Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav which had led to speculations about his joining the SP.
Talking about the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, he said, “I have been an MLA from Lakhimpur Kheri and the way farmers were run over by cars, everybody is suffering. Everybody is looking for a chance to elect the Samajwadi Party to power,â€
He said, "As BSP deviated from the ideology of Baba Saheb, most of the party members are sad and hence they are joining the Samajwadi Party in large numbers."
Former BSP MP from Muzaffarnagar Kadir Rana also joined the Samajwadi Party in the presence Akhilesh Yadav at a function held at the state office of the SP.
In 2009, Rana was elected as MP from Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha constituency. He had contested from the Morna assembly constituency in 2007 on Rashtriya Lok Dal ticket and won.
