Beni Prasad Varma returns to Samajwadi Party, likely to go to Rajya Sabha

Former Union minister and senior Congress leader Beni Prasad Varma on Friday returned to the Samajwadi Party after quitting the Congress. He is all set to be nominated by the party to the Rajya Sabha.

Mr Varma’s return to his parent party is apparently a move by the Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav to counter the possible influence of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on the Kurmi community in Uttar Pradesh.

After Mr Varma’s exit from the Samajwadi Party in 2007, the Samajwadi Party did not have a Kurmi leader of its own.

Announcing Mr Varma’s return at a press conference here on Friday, Mulayam Singh Yadav said Mr Varma’s homecoming would strengthen the party.

“He may have been in another party for some time, but he always remained a socialist at heart. He is one of the founding members of the Samajwadi Party and he gave the name to our party,” Mr Yadav said.

Mr Yadav also narrated a number of anecdotes about Mr Varma and said he had been a party to all major political decisions taken by him.

UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who was also present on the occasion, said that the party would gain from Mr Varma’s return.

UP minister Shivpal Singh Yadav and Mohd Azam Khan also welcomed the veteran leader into the party fold.

Mr Varma’s son, Rakesh Varma, a former minister, has also joined the Samajwadi Party.

Meanwhile, the Congress in UP said that leaders like Mr Varma could never rise above their personal interest. Senior UPCC leader Satyadev Tripathi said in a statement that Mr Varma’s joining the Samajwadi Party proved that politics had been commercialised.

Mr Varma, after his defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, had been feeling sidelined in the Congress. His statements against senior Congress leaders had not only embarrassed the Congress on several occasions but party workers were also uneasy with his presence.

Mr Varma said that he waited for two years for the Congress to give him responsibility but no one was interested. He said he was feeling suffocated in the party.

Incidentally, Mr Varma had levelled several unprintable allegations against Mr Yadav but the latter dismissed them on Friday saying that he may have said it in a fit of anger.

Asked about his comments on Mr Yadav on the issue of Babri mosque demolition, Mr Varma said, “Time which has gone never comes back. I am not denying anything. For a new start, old things have to be forgotten. Now my objective is to make Akhilesh the chief minister again.”

Earlier, Mr Varma had blamed Mulayam Singh for the demolition of the Babri mosque in 1992.