Ghosi assembly by-election result an accident, BJP will win all 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP in 2024: Keshav Prasad Maurya

The victory of the Samajwadi Party candidate in the Ghosi assembly by-election as an “accident”, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said Saturday asserting that the BJP will win all 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 2024 general elections. The senior BJP leader also asserted that the OBCs were with the BJP and they continue to support the party, despite its defeat in Ghosi. In an exclusive interview with PTI Video, Maurya also felt that Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party leader Om Prakash Rajbhar should not have said that he and Dara Singh Chauhan, who recently returned to the BJP, would join the Yogi Adityanath government. He said anything on Cabinet expansion in the state should come from the chief minister only. He said the Ghosi by-election result was “an accident” and the party will learn from it to ensure that in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls the BJP’s Lotus symbol blooms. Chauhan, who left the BJP in January last year, had won the Ghosi assembly poll on a Samajwadi Party ticket but switched to the BJP again and was fielded by the ruling party in the recent by-election, where the SP was supported by the other INDIA opposition bloc parties. He was defeated by SP’s Sudhakar Singh by a margin of over 40,000 votes. Responding to a question on SP, Maurya said the opposition party was fast becoming “samaptwadi” (reaching its end) party. With inputs from agencies.