Warrant against former UP Minister Swami Prasad Maurya

A day after Swami Prasad Maurya resigned from the Yogi Adityanath cabinet, an MP-MLA court in Uttar Pradesh’s Sultanpur has issued an arrest warrant against the former Labour Minister on Wednesday, in a seven-year-old case.

Yogesh Yadav, the magistrate of MP-MLA court (special courts set up to hear cases concerning Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assemblies), has ordered Maurya to appear on January 24. In 2014, Maurya - then a Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) leader - had made an ‘objectionable’ remark suggesting that deities should not be worshipped.

Maurya had obtained a stay on the arrest warrant against him from the high court in 2016. The warrant was actively issued, after the former Labour Minister failed to appear before the court on January 12.

Maurya resigned from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on January 11 alleging that the BJP government in the state was discriminatory towards Dalit and backward classes. In his resignation letter to Governor Anandiben Patel, Maurya said that the Yogi government was ignoring the interests of farmers, youth, traders and backward classes.

Meanwhile, the former cabinet minister today announced that he will be joining Samajwadi Party (SP) on January 14 alleging that BJP government was shying away from its responsibilities.

“The state government is giving everything to the private firms. Capitalists are getting encouraged. How can the government shy away from its responsibilities?” he said.