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Updated: Oct 06, 2019 18:10 IST

Rukamani Devi Nishad, sister of the late Phoolan Devi joined Samajwadi Party on Sunday in the presence of the party’s national president Akhilesh Yadav.

Once a dacoit, Phoolan Devi was also known as Bandit Queen, had later turned politician and was a Samajwadi Party Lok Sabha member before she was assassinated in Delhi in 2001.

Rukamani Devi Nishad left the Pragatisheel Manav Party, a minor outfit, to join the SP. Along with her, Ramakant Yadav, a compulsive party-hopper also returned to the Samajwadi Party. Yadav who had been hobnobbing with the SP, had been expelled by the Congress on Thursday. He had joined the Congress ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Ramakant Yadav had won the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat on Samajwadi Party ticket in 1996 and 1999, and then retained the seat as Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate in 2004 and as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate in 2009. Akhilesh Yadav is currently the MP from Azamgarh. In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he switched sides and joined the Congress after the BJP denied him a ticket.

After joining the SP, Rukmini Devi Nishad said, “I am leaving behind my Pragatisheel Manav Party and it feels like coming home.”

Calling Akhilesh Yadav a younger brother, she said the SP chief should be strengthened to enable the party to win 2022 Assembly polls and make him the chief minister again.

Ramakant Yadav said, “I am overwhelmed and overjoyed at this homecoming. I will be Akhilesh Yadav’s soldier now”.

Rukamani Devi belongs to the boatmen’s Nishad community which is among the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) category and has substantial numbers in several pockets in Uttar Pradesh and the SP wants to leverage her presence in the party to target the community’s votes.

Akhilesh Yadav sounded upbeat after the two recruits joined his party. “The way leaders from other parties are joining the SP and increasing the SP family, it is quite apparent that SP will be able to oust BJP from UP in 2022 UP assembly polls.”

But that may be a tall order. The Samajwadi Party won 47 seats in the 403-member legislative assembly in 2017 which the BJP swept with 312 seats.