Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh said Singh was 'not fully committed' towards the party's ideology and that is why he left this fight midway to join the saffron party.
The Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh will be reduced to its 2012 tally of 47 or thereabouts as the wind is blowing in favour of the Akhilesh Yadav-led coalition this election, says Swami Prasad Maurya who left the saffron party to join the Samajwadi Party last month.
I begin a new chapter in my political journey. Jai Hind," he wrote on Twitter sharing his brief resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi.
Hours after Uttar Pradesh labour and employment minister Swami Prasad Maurya quit his post, his daughter and the Bharatiya Janata Party's Badaun MP Sanghamitra Maurya on Tuesday claimed her father has not joined any party and will reveal his strategy in a couple of days.
'These guys who are running away -- they are running away from all that the BJP stands for.'
Nine of the turncoats were fielded by the BJP and 10 by the Samajwadi Party.
Informing about his decision, Maurya said in a tweet in Hindi, 'Due to the attitude of gross neglect towards Dalits, backwards, farmers, unemployed youth and small and medium-sized traders, I am resigning from the council of ministers of Yogi (Adityanath) of UP.'
OBC leader Dharam Singh Saini on Thursday became the third minister to resign from the Uttar Pradesh cabinet this week, giving yet another jolt to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the run-up to the assembly polls.
The Hindu Yuva Vahini, floated by its firebrand leader and Lok Sabha member Yogi Adityanath, has fielded candidates against the saffron party in six assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh.
Its allies Apna Dal (S) and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party bagged nine seats and four seats, respectively, taking the total tally of the combine to 325.
The Congress wants the 28 seats it won in 2012 plus 20 seats where the party was runner-up plus 57 seats where it was ahead of the SP in 2012.
An estimated 57.03 per cent voters cast their ballots on Saturday in the sixth phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections covering 49 Assembly seats, including Mau, where gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari is in the fray.
Around 1.72 crore voters, including 94.60 lakh men and 77.84 lakh women, are eligible to cast their votes in this round to decide the fate of 635 candidates.
On the eve of the sixth and penultimate phase of the marathon Uttar Pradesh elections, Rediff.com's Aslam Hunani reports on what's at stake.
Given the controversy over Uttar Pradesh's population control moves, Hemant Shivsaran/Rediff.com digs deep to find out how many children BJP MLAs in UP have.