Swami Prasad Maurya resigned with little fanfare. Why, forget the fanfare or lack of fanfare, why did Maurya quit the Samajwadi Party, which clung on to him for months as if for dear life? Maurya’s visceral attacks on Sanatana Dharma and on Lord Ram in particular, the 'Pran Prathistha' of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir must have been the last nail in Maurya’s political coffin.

On Tuesday, Maurya also quit the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council. Until a week ago, he was also the party’s national general secretary. It kind of struck odd when Maurya made it a point to share his two resignation letters – one to the chairman of the state Legislative Council, and the other to Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav – with the media, why?

“I have been elected as a member of the Legislative Council, Uttar Pradesh from the Assembly, Uttar Pradesh constituency as a candidate of the Samajwadi Party. Since I have resigned from the primary membership of the Samajwadi Party, hence on the basis of morality, I am also resigning from the membership of the Legislative Council, Uttar Pradesh. Please kindly accept,” he wrote.

To Akhilesh Yadav, he wrote, “Got the opportunity to work in a cordial environment under your leadership. But as a result of not taking the initiative of any kind of talks on the talks held on 12 February 2024 and the letter sent on 13.02.2024, I am also resigning from the primary membership of the Samajwadi Party.” So, Swami Prasad Maurya’s decision was more because of Akhilesh Yadav not reciprocating to his entreaties and suggestions than because of the surrounding din created by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s overarching impact on the politics and politicians of the day.

For example, the noise around Congress stalwart Kamalnath, the din refuses to die down. The man is in three, four, five, even six, minds and how many political analysts of any note can make an educated guess? Swami Prasad Maurya is not in Kamalnath’s class; the BJP wouldn’t do cartwheels to get Maurya to join the party and it is unlikely Maurya’s daughter, who is a BJP politician, will make an entry in the BJP record book on behalf of her dear father.

What Swami Prasad Maurya’s immediate future is for anybody to guess, even for the little boy who went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Maurya cited “discrimination” for his dissatisfaction with the Samajwadi Party leadership, which made him take the decision to quit the party, the party’s “failure to support him, stand with his controversial statements on Ramcharitmanas and the Ayodhya temple Pran Prathistha”.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, Lord Rama got Swami Prasad Maurya’s scalp, the first of many who will meet their political end at the hands of Ram. General elections 2024 will see scores falling by the wayside and too late they will realize.

If Akhilesh Yadav has got any politics running in his blood, he will have understood it from Swami Prasad Maurya’s decisions of quitting the Samajwadi Party and the legislative council. Swami Prasad’s political career has taken a crippling knock and recovery is not an option. There was talk he might launch his own party. Be that as it may, but he will have to resort to Ram to do that, too.

“I have left everything up to the party workers. Whatever they want would be acceptable to me,” Maurya said. His rift with Akhilesh Yadav had gone from bad to worse and Akhilesh started realizing the political impact of the Ram Mandir. And the SP chief accused Maurya of joining the Samajwadi Party "for benefits", almost as if subtly moving Maurya to quit, get out of the party fold.

“Everyone comes to take benefits, but who stays on the spot? Who will tell what is in someone’s mind? Not only this, Akhilesh Yadav said that there is no such machine that can know what is going on in someone’s mind. Everyone leaves after taking the benefits.” Akhilesh Yadav nudged Maurya and the firebrand reacted in the only way he knew: “He is not in power in the state or at the centre and is not in a position to give anything. I will return everything he has given me until now". Swami Prasad Maurya's last days as a politician of note has come to an end and Lord Rama did him in as much as his loose tongue. (IPA Service)