Super Sunday in UP as Ex-IPS Officer Asim Arun Joins BJP, Former MLA Dara Singh Chauhan to Jump to SP

There is a direct fight between the SP and the BJP, that is why Imran Masood and I have decided to join the SP, said Congress MLA Masood Akhtar. (Image: ANI)

Asim Arun, the former IPS officer who was posted as Commissioner of Kanpur Police before taking Voluntary Retirement recently, has joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today. Sources say that Asim Arun may be fielded from Kannauj in upcoming assembly elections. Another bureaucrat who is expected to join BJP today is retired IAS Ram Bahadur.

Bahadur had contested the 2017 assembly elections on a BSP ticket and had contested from Mohanlalganj seat. Though he lost by a thin margin of around 530 votes, it is expected that Ram Bahadur may once again be fielded from Mohanlalganj, but this time on a BJP ticket. After 2017, Bahadur had floated his own political outfit Nagrik Ekta party and has been active on various social and political issues. The retired IAS was once considered as right hand man of BSP Supremo Mayawati and had enjoyed some key postings in the state.

On the other hand, Samajwadi Party Chief and former Chief Minister of the state Akhilesh Yadav has called for a press conference today at 12:30pm on Sunday at Samajwadi Party headquarters. It is expected that former minister in Yogi Adityanath cabinet Dara Singh Chauhan along with other rebels may formally join Samajwadi Party.

After tendering his resignation on January 12, Chauhan said that he had worked with dedication for the past five year but Dalits, the OBCs and the unemployed did not get justice from the BJP government. “It was the poor who had made the government but others took all the advantage in the past five years,” he said, after sending the resignation letter to Governor Anandiben Patel.

Chauhan, the minister for Forests and Environment, said he had been informing the party high command about the problems all through. But he was ignored as he was talking about the backward and Dalits, he claimed.

Sources also say that former Congress leader and a known Muslim face in Western UP, Imran Masood may also officially join Samajwadi Party along with some more leaders from Western Uttar Pradesh.

Source: News18