Dara Singh Chauhan, a former Cabinet minister in the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government, joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Lucknow on Sunday, 16 January.
"I welcome Dara Singh Chauhan and his supporters who have come along large numbers," Yadav was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.
The Forest and Environment minister had quit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) earlier this week, and is one of the three ministers who has resigned from the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's Cabinet in what has become a mass exodus of ministers and MLAs from the BJP to the SP.
In his resignation letter, Chauhan had written that "the government's attitude towards the backward and deprived sections, Dalits, farmers, and unemployed youth, and the messing with the quota for backward sections and Dalits" had hurt him.
The other two ministers to have resigned are Swami Prasad Maurya, who was the Minister of Labour, and Dharam Singh Saini, who was the Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ayush, Food Security and Drug Administration.
At the function inducting Maurya and other rebels into the SP, its leader Akhilesh Yadav had said that "BJP wickets falling one after the other, although our CM does not know how to play cricket. As Swami Prasad Maurya said wherever he goes, the government is formed, even this time he brought a huge number of leaders along with him."
RK Verma, who is an MLA of the BJP’s ally in Uttar Pradesh, the Apna Dal, also joined the Samajwadi Party on 16 January.
The exodus is being perceived as a major development in favour of the SP ahead of the 2022 UP elections.
'Clean Characters Join BJP'
Meanwhile, Anurag Singh Thakur, who is the Minister of Sports, Youth Affairs and Minister of Information and Broadcasting in the Modi government's cabinet, said while addressing an event in Lucknow that "people joining SP do riots, people joining BJP catch rioters," ANI reported.
"SP MLAs are either in jail or on bail, that's their original game. It's clear people with clean characters join BJP, & rioters including many with blood-covered hands join SP."
(With inputs from Hindustan Times.)
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