After Kalyan Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party is now mending bridges with mafia don-turned politician D.P. Yadav.
According to party sources, a powerful lobby in the party is strongly in favour of bringing Mr D.P. Yadav into the party fold before the Lok Sabha elections.
“With the Samajwadi Party pursuing an aggressive policy of Muslim appeasement, polarisation of votes is bound to take place and D.P. Yadav’s presence will help us polarise Yadav and other OBC votes in our favour. Besides Mr Kalyan Singh will also strengthen our OBC vote base,” said a senior party leader.
Mr D.P. Yadav had joined the BJP in 2002 but had walked out owing to opposition within the party.
The BJP, incidentally, does not have a Yadav leader of stature in Uttar Pradesh and feels that with his power and position, D.P. Yadav will be able to counter the Yadav leadership in the Samajwadi Party. In the 2007 Assembly polls, D P Yadav and his wife Urmilesh had won under the banner of their Rashtriya Parivartan Dal and later merged their party into the BSP.
When the BSP denied tickets to the Yadav couple, D.P. Yadav tired to join the Samajwadi Party but his attempt was thwarted by the then state president of the party Akhilesh Yadav.
He contested the Assembly polls in 2012 on his Rashtriya Parivartan Dal banner but lost the polls.
According to sources close to the mafia don-turned-politician, he is also keen to joining a national party in order to retain his political identity.
“Preliminary talks have been held with some BJP leaders who are keen to bring him into the party fold. As soon as something materialises, we will let you know,” said the source.
Interestingly, the RSS — if sources are to be believed — is not averse to Mr D.P. Yadav joining the BJP. “He is a winnable candidate for the Lok Sabha elections and for the BJP, every seat counts this time,” said a Sangh leader.
D.P. Yadav, incidentally, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in the past one decade since his son, Vikas Yadav, was accused and later convicted in the Nitish Katara murder case that has been grabbing headlines since 2002.
The BJP, however, is not too worried about inducting tainted leaders, especially after it welcomed Babu Singh Kushwaha and Badshah Singh into its fold during the Assembly polls. Both the leaders are now in jail.