A senior Samajwadi Party leader and a close aide of Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday joined Mayawati’s (pictured above) Bahujan Samaj Party and later became a member of the party’s legislative council, reported PTI. Ambika Chaudhary, who has been promised a BSP ticket from Phephna seat in Ballia, said he took the decision after the recent Samajwadi Party fiasco and the way Mulayam Singh Yadav was treated.

Chaudhary said the Samajwadi Party infighting exposed the deep-rooted fissures in the party. “The manner in which these developments came to an end… before the Election Commission on January 16 only proved that the intention of the tussle was something other than shielding the secular movement and the downtrodden,” he added. The real reason behind the crossover, however, is that Chaudhary was denied a party ticket by the Akhilesh Yadav camp, reported NDTV.

Chaudhary, who has been in politics for the last 40 years, is a former legislator from eastern Uttar Pradesh. He was also a minister in the current Uttar Pradesh government before Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav sacked him.

Mayawati was present when Chaudhary was inducted into BSP. “I have taken him in the party and he will be given full respect in the BSP at all levels, much more than he was getting in the SP. The party will field him from his old seat in Ballia in the Assembly polls,” the BSP chief told PTI. Chaudhary had lost the Phephna seat in the last Assembly elections in 2012.