’Bring 100 and…’: Akhilesh Yadav extends ’monsoon offer’ to BJP MLAs amid rumours of rift in UP

As speculation of a rift in the Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gains ground over the saffron party's performance in the Lok Sabha election 2024 in the state, Samajwadi Party (SP) MP and chief Akhilesh Yadav has made a a “monsoon offer” to the ruling party MLAs. In a post, Akhilesh Yadav asked the dissidents to bring a hundred MLAs and form a new government in Uttar Pradesh.

"Monsoon offer: Sau lao, sarkaar banao [Bring a hundred, form government]," the former chief minister said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

While Akhilesh Yadav did not name anyone in his post, a senior party leader told news agency PTI that it was a message for who are dissatisfied with Yogi Adityanath and wanted to switch to the Opposition.

"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 was quoted as saying by PTI.

There has been discontent within the Uttar Pradesh unit of the BJP which became evident after Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya's post where he stated that the party is bigger than the government. He also urged all ministers, MLAs and public representatives to respect party workers.

“The organisation is bigger than the government; the pain of the workers is my pain. No one is bigger than the organisation; the workers are the pride,” he said.

On Tuesday, July 16, Keshav Prasad Maurya met BJP chief JP Nadda but the details of the meeting have not been out.

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, agency reported.

(With agency inputs)