Akhilesh's 'monsoon offer' dig amid UP BJP rift buzz

Amid speculation of a rift in the Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday, in a cryptic post on X, seemed to be asking ruling party MLAs to switch sides to form a new government in the state.

"Monsoon offer: Bring hundred, form government," the former chief minister said.

While Yadav did not name anyone in his post, a senior SP leader said on the condition of anonymity that it was a message for those in the BJP who were dissatisfied with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and wanted to cross over.

"The SP won 111 seats in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections and if we get the support of 100 dissatisfied BJP MLAs, then we will easily form the government," the SP leader explained.

The speculation about the rift in the BJP's state unit was fuelled by Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya's post on X on Wednesday stating that the party is bigger than the government.

He also urged all ministers, MLAs and public representatives to respect party workers.

Maurya had met BJP president J P Nadda in Delhi on Tuesday but neither the BJP nor the deputy chief minister said anything about the meeting.

There has long been a buzz about less-than-warm relations between Maurya and Adityanath. In private conversations, a number of BJP leaders from the state, including those who lost in the Lok Sabha polls, have been critical of the chief minister's working style and cited it as one of the reasons for their loss.