LUCKNOW: A day after Congress MLA Aditi Singh defied the Opposition call to boycott the 36-hour-long non-stop session of the

and spoke at the Vidhan Sabha here on Wednesday, rebel

(SP) leader Shivpal Yadav—who floated his own party recently—too attended the session on the concluding day on Thursday and heaped praises on chief minister

and his government.

The extraordinary assembly session was the brainchild of Yogi to mark the 150th birth anniversary of

Mahatma Gandhi

and to discuss the 16-point charter of sustainable development goals of the UN. However, the Opposition parties in the state including SP,

(BSP) and Congress had decided to boycott the session.

Shivpal said the chief minister was changing the work culture of the state and pushing development hard.

Shivpal, who drew applause from the treasury benches with his praises for Yogi, also had the House bursting in laughter when he said he would also count some “bad works” of the police.

The president of Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSPL) said that a minor girl had been abducted from his constituency Jaswant Nagar and the police did not lodge an FIR. Her kin had to hire a car at Rs 25,000 to recover the girl from Delhi. Even then, the police did not lodge a complaint, he added.

“Ab ladki mil gai hai, mukhya mantriji. Bas, 25,000 rupaye vapas dilwa dijiye (Dear CM, now that the girl has been recovered, please return Rs 25,000),” said Shivpal, which left the House in splits.

It was not only Aditi and Shivpal. On Wednesday, rebel Samajwadi Party MLA Nitin Agarwal, who has joined BJP but is still technically an SP member in the Assembly, launched a scathing attack against SP president

and his then-government of which Nitin was a part of as minister.

While Nitin attacked SP, he was occupying the seat of Leader of the Opposition and senior SP leader Ram Govind Chaudhary.

Political observers say that with Aditi and Shivpal attending the session and heaping praise on Yogi—and Nitin Agarwal attacking the party of which he is still an MLA—Yogi has pulled off a coup to break the Opposition unity.