15 days after lunch with Modi, BSP MP joins BJP

Fifteen days after having lunch with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Parliament canteen along with a few other opposition MPs, Bahujan Samaj Party MP from Ambedkar Nagar in eastern Uttar Pradesh, Ritesh Pandey, 34, joined the BJP in New Delhi on Sunday.

The move came amid indications that Pandey could be the BJP candidate from Ambedkar Nagar, one of the 16 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh that the party lost in 2019.

“The BJP has special plans for seats it has failed to win in UP. So there is this possibility (of Pandey contesting). But, just in case he doesn’t, now that he is with BJP, we will now be stronger on the seat,” a BJP leader said.

Belonging to a political family, Pandey joined the BJP two days ahead of the February 27 Rajya Sabha poll where the BJP is looking for eight additional votes to secure win of its eighth candidate. There is much speculation centered on Ritesh’s father Rakesh, a former MP and currently the Samajwadi Party lawmaker from Jalalpur. State assembly members vote in the Rajya Sabha polls.

Ritesh Pandey, a graduate from London’s European Business School, is the first of the 10 BSP MPs who won in 2019 as part of BSP-SP alliance, to have quit the party and joined the BJP.

Two others are expected to join the Congress. They include suspended BSP MP from Amroha Danish Ali, who has participated in Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Nyay Yatra, and BSP MP Shyam Singh Yadav from Jaunpur.

That’s perhaps why the BJP inducted Pandey, who some leaders in Ambedkar Nagar indicated, had plans to contest the Lok Sabha polls as an independent if talks with the BJP didn’t materialize.

Apart from the party national general secretary Tarun Chugh and national vice president and UP election in-charge Baijayant Jay Panda, Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak and state BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary were present for the joining in New Delhi.

Soon after being inducted into the party, Ritesh Pandey said: “I had been working for BSP for the past 15 years ... I have written about the reasons for my exiting BSP in my resignation letter. Whatever is happening in my constituency has happened in the last five years,” he said, hailing development in U.P. and in his constituency under the “double engine” BJP government.

“I took the decision to move to the BJP after evaluating all those ground level developments -- two industrial areas in my constituency, the Purvanchal Expressway, Gorakhpur link Expressway, schools, the four-lane road that connects Ambedkar Nagar to Ayodhya’s Ram temple -- all of it.”

He said the economic condition of people, farmers, women, and Dalits has changed for the better (under BJP rule).

“Riteshji is a widely travelled, well-educated leader who has taken a conscious decision to be part of Viksit Bharat yatra of BJP. His decision was guided by the way he saw how Prime Minister Narendra Modi worked,” said deputy CM Brajesh Pathak.

UP BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary said under PM Modi’s stewardship, everyone wanted to be part of India’s growth story. He said Pandey would also work for the same.