Ex-BJP MLA Ballia Ram Iqbal Singh joins Samajwadi Party

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Lucknow, December 20

Former BJP MLA from Ballia Ram Iqbal Singh, a known critic of his party’s government in Uttar Pradesh, on Monday joined the Samajwadi Party ahead of the 2022 UP Assembly polls.

In a tweet, the SP dubbed the BJP’s ex-MLA joining it as a sign of its “growing caravan”.

“The growing caravan of SP. Former BJP MLA from Chilkahar assembly constituency in Ballia Ram Iqbal Singh joined the SP along with his associates, reposing faith in the leadership of (its) national president (Akhilesh Yadav),” the SP said in a tweet.

Singh, also a former member of the BJP’s state executive committee, was elected as an MLA from Chilkahar assembly constituency in the 2002 UP assembly elections.

Following the delimitation of assembly constituencies in 2008, Chilkahar ceased to exist.

On October 14, Singh had accused Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Kumar Mishra of being behind the Lakhimpur violence and sought his sacking from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He had earlier said bureaucrats are running the government in the state and had also raised a question mark on the handling of the second Covid wave by the Yogi Adityanath government.

On November 10, Singh had taken a dig at Yogi Adityanath, suggesting that if he is removed from the post of the chief minister, he will immediately become a monk. — PTI