BJP leader Rita Bahuguna Joshi's son joins SP

After weeks of speculation, Mayank Joshi, son of Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Allahabad Rita Bahuguna Joshi, joined the Samajwadi Party on Saturday.

Mayank Joshi, who is also the grandson of former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, joined the Samajwadi Party at an election meeting of party president Akhilesh Yadav in Azamgarh, hours before the campaign ended for the seventh and final round of polling slated for Monday.

On February 22, Joshi had met SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.

"Grandson of former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Late Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna ji, youth leader Shri Mayank Joshi took membership of Samajwadi Party in Azamgarh in the presence of national president Akhilesh Yadav. Welcome and thanks," the SP said on its Twitter handle.

Meanwhile, Rita Bahuguna Joshi said that she will remain in the BJP and has full faith in the national leadership, according to her media in-charge of Abhishek Shukla.

In a statement, he said the BJP MP is presently in Tripura for a Parliamentary Committee meeting, where she came to know through the news media that Mayank Joshi has joined the Samajwadi Party.

Shukla said that she has refused to comment on this and added that she will remain in the BJP and has full faith in the national leadership.

According to reports in a section of media, Rita Bahuguna was trying for a BJP ticket for her son from the Cantt assembly constituency of Lucknow, but the party fielded Law Minister Brajesh Pathak.

Rita Bahuguna Joshi was the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee and had joined the BJP before the 2017 assembly elections.

She won the Cantt assembly constituency in Lucknow by defeating SP candidate Aparna Yadav, SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law, who has now joined the BJP.

She was also made a minister in the BJP government led by Yogi Adityanath but in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, she was nominated by the BJP from the Allahabad parliamentary constituency and won the election.

She was also a Congress MLA from the Cantt area in 2012.