Amid speculations of an alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party-associated Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP), the latter party's chief Om Prakash Rajbhar on Saturday, 19 March, rubbished the rumours and reiterated its support for Akhilesh Yadav's SP.
"Those are old photos. Someone can repost the old photos and say whatever they want," Rajbhar said, alluding to reports of him meeting BJP's Amit Shah.
"The reports are baseless. Neither did I go to Delhi nor did I meet anyone. I'm busy in preparations for local body polls, working to make candidates of SP-alliance victorious," he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
"The news of Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party going with the Bharatiya Janata Party is baseless, the party was with the Samajwadi Party, is and will remain so!" tweeted party spokesperson Piyush Mishra in Hindi.
This comes a day after reports of SBSP National President Om Prakash Rajbhar meeting BJP leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah surfaced on Friday, 18 March, fuelling conjecture of talks of sorts, of a partnership between the SBSP and the saffron party.
As per these reports, Rajbhar and Shah reportedly met for about an hour in the presence of Union Minister and UP election in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan, and the BJP's organisation general secretary Sunil Bansal.
This comes ahead of the swearing-in of the Yogi Adityanath Cabinet on 25 March.
The SBSP, which had allied with the SP in the recently-held Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, has won six seats in the state Assembly, which has 403 constituencies.
In the 2017 state polls, the SBSP had allied with the ruling BJP, and had won four seats. Rajbhar had been appointed as a minister in the UP Cabinet under Yogi Adityanath, and had served in the position till 2019 when the two parties fell out.
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