"BJP The Snake, I'm The Mongoose": SP Maurya, Who Quit Team Yogi

Swami Prasad Maurya, who quit Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's government and is leading the flight of backward caste leaders from the BJP, has pulled out a snake-and-mongoose parallel for his political moves.

The former UP minister who was the BJP's top OBC (Other Backward Class) face, went all out in a tweet that he posted alongside two more exits from the BJP.

"The RSS is like a cobra, BJP is like a snake. Swami Prasad Maurya is like the mongoose who won't give up till they are wiped out from UP," Swami Prasad Maurya tweeted in Hindi.

Yesterday, in an interview to NDTV, Mr Maurya had declared that "the endgame has begun for the BJP" and he would be the one to take down the party.

He had slammed the BJP, using the metaphor of python gobbling up the rights of Dalits, unemployed, farmers and others.

Mr Maurya resigned as minister in the BJP government on Tuesday but has not formally exited the BJP. He has also not confirmed reports of his crossover to Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party.

Seven more leaders, including two ministers, have resigned since then.

Mr Maurya said he had complained to the BJP leadership about Yogi Adityanath's leadership and had raised what he called the neglect of Dalits, backward castes, farmers and unemployed by the state government but the party did not react.

Last year, Mr Maurya and a few other MLAs had even met with top leaders but after a central BJP team carried out an internal review, very little changed.