UP Elections 2022 | ‘Netaji tried to convince her’: Akhilesh Yadav on sister-in-law Aparna Yadav joining BJP
Reacting to his sister-in-law Aparna Yadav joining the BJP, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday said that party patriarch and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav tried to convince the former.
“Firstly, I will congratulate her and I am happy that Samajwadi Party’s ideology is expanding…Netaji (former UP CM Mulayam Singh Yadav) tried to convince her,” Yadav said while addressing the media.
Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav joined the BJP on Wednesday, asserting that she has always been impressed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Aparna Yadav is married to Prateek Yadav, son of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s second wife while SP president Akhilesh Yadav is his son from the first marriage.
There had been much speculation about her joining the BJP, and the development highlights the rift in the SP’s ruling family at a time when Akhilesh Yadav has been working to rally the party’s base in the run up to the state assembly polls.
The development comes days after a string of BJP lawmakers from the state, including ministers and mostly from backward castes, had defected to the Samajwadi Party, alleging that the BJP worked against the interests of the poor and deprived communities.
Aparna Yadav had contested the 2017 assembly polls on the Samajwadi Party ticket from Lucknow Cantt but had lost to BJP’s Rita Bahuguna Joshi, now a Lok Sabha member.