Lucknow, June 4: Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar has said that the Bharatiya Janata Party's defeat in the Kairana and Noorpur bypolls was owing to Keshav Prasad Maurya not being made the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. The leader of the Ekta Manch alliance has claimed that the people of Uttar Pradesh are angry because an OBC candidate was not made the chief minister of the state. After the BJP won a huge mandate in the 2017 assembly elections, it was widely believed that an OBC candidate would be made the chief minister of UP but to everyone's surprise, former BJP MP from Gorakhpur, Yogi Adityanath was promoted to the post by the party. Keshav Prasad Maurya was made the deputy CM.

Rajbhar, in a direct attack on Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, said that the losses in the recent assembly and Lok Sabha bypolls are because Yogi Adityanath was made the CM of the state. He also added that though Maurya being made the chief minister or not was BJP's internal decision, it is also true that the backward castes voted for the BJP with the hope that Keshav Prasad Maurya would be made the leader of the house.

He insisted that the mandate in UP was for Maurya and not Yogi Adityanath. In the recently concluded Kairana and Noorpur by-elections, the BJP lost both the seats which it had earlier won. Earlier this year, the BJP also lost out on the Gorakhpur and Phoolpur seats after bypoll losses.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 04, 2018 03:24 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).