Ambika Chaudhary has been an active politician for 40 years and with Samajwadi Party for 2 decades.
It was a usual Mayawati press conference in Lucknow, with a one-hour address from the Bahujan Samaj Party chief. And then came the shock, at the very end.
As Mayawati was wrapping up her press conference, senior Samajwadi Party leader and someone extremely close to former SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, Ambika Chaudhary walked in. Ambika Chaudhary is a former legislator from eastern Uttar Pradesh and was also a minister in the Uttar Pradesh government, till chief minister Akhilesh Yadav sacked him a few months ago.
Ambika Chaudhary has been an active politician for 40 years and with the Samajwadi Party for two decades. In the party, Ambika Chaudhary is known as the think-tank and was known to frequently advise both Mulayam Singh and his now sidelined brother Shivpal Yadav on political and legal matters, including in the representations made by Mulayam Singh to the Election Commission recently, in the fight over the party's name and symbol with Akhilesh Yadav.
"In a political party like the SP, its first responsibility should have been to protect the interests of the people of UP. But the events of the last few months have proved to me that the entire objective of what happened was something else," said Ambika Chaudhary, as he accepted a bouquet from Mayawati.
Sources close to Ambika Chaudhary said that the veteran politician had been told by Akhilesh Yadav's camp that he would not be given a ticket by them to fight the upcoming polls from his home district Ballia, in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Mr Chaudhary was also extremely close to Shivpal Yadav, who has been given a seat from his constituency by Akhilesh Yadav, but only after a special recommendation from Mulayam Singh Yadav.
"Let him make the request. I'll then consider it and let all of you know," said Mayawati, when asked if Shivpal Yadav could also defect.