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A hearty welcome for Naresh Agarwal in BSP

Photo: Subir Roy

Welcome aboard: Former Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal who joined the BSP is presented a bouquet by Chief Minister Mayawati at a welcome function in Lucknow on Wednesday.

LUCKNOW: The former Samajwadi Party MLA, Naresh Agarwal, was on Wednesday inducted into the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) by party president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati.

Ms. Mayawati announced that Mr. Agarwal would contest next year’s Lok Sabha election from Farrukhabad. Ms. Mayawati also appointed him as the national general secretary of the party.

Mr. Agarwal had resigned from the Samajwadi Party on May 24. He also quit his Vidhan Sabha seat. He was an MLA from Hardoi, his home district.

Ms. Mayawati said his son, Nitin Agarwal, who too joined the BSP, would contest the Assembly byelection from Hardoi — the seat vacated by his father.

Mr. Naresh Agarwal is the second senior SP leader to embrace the BSP within 24 hours. On Tuesday, Dhani Ram Verma, MLA from Bidhuna in Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh and the former Assembly speaker, joined the BSP in Kannauj. His son, Mahesh Verma, has been given the BSP ticket from Kannauj for Lok Sabha election.

Since Mr. Naresh Agarwal belongs to the Baniya community, Ms. Mayawati assigned him the additional responsibility of garnering the support of the Vaishya Samaj (business community) for the party.

Mr. Agarwal holds the dubious distinction of having been a member of the Congress, the Samajwadi Party, before joining the BSP.

When the Bharatiya Janata Party was in power from 1997 to 2002, Mr. Naresh Agarwal, who had walked out of the Congress in 1997 with 22 MLAs to form the Loktantrik Congress Party, served as a Cabinet Minister in the Kalyan Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta and Rajnath Singh regimes.

He held the crucial Energy portfolio. The Loktantrik Congress had extended outside support to the BJP government.

He was sacked as a Cabinet Minister by the former Chief Minister and the current BJP president, Rajnath Singh, in 2001.

After remaining in political wilderness for some time, he dumped the Loktantrik Congress Party and joined the Samajwadi Party. When Mulayam Singh became the Chief Minister in August 2003, Mr. Agarwal managed to become the Tourism Minister and thereafter held the Transport portfolio.

He joins another former Congressman, Akhilesh Das, to secure the Vaishya support for the BSP. Mr. Das had joined the BSP earlier this month.

He will be the BSP candidate from Lucknow in the Lok Sabha poll.

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A hearty welcome for Naresh Agarwal in BSP

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