The Samajwadi Party has lost a minor ally whom a chain of political circumstances last year had turned into a symbol of the emerging Opposition alliance in Uttar Pradesh and the threat it posed to the Narendra Modi juggernaut.

The Nishad Party — whose candidate won the Lok Sabha by-election in Yogi Adityanath’s bastion of Gorakhpur in March 2018 while contesting under the Samajwadi symbol and with Bahujan Samaj Party support — is looking to tie up with the BJP.

Sanjay Nishad, the seven-year-old party’s president, met chief minister Adityanath and state BJP president Mahendra Nath Pandey in Lucknow on Friday and told reporters he was going over to the National Democratic Alliance.

Samajwadi president Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday promptly announced old party hand Ram Bhual Nishad as the candidate from Gorakhpur, dropping Sanjay’s son and sitting MP Pravin Kumar Nishad.

While an unexpected alliance between bitter enemies Samajwadi Party and BSP handed the BJP a series of Assembly and Lok Sabha by-election defeats in the heartland state last year and emboldened the Opposition countrywide, Gorakhpur perhaps provided the icing on the cake.

The constituency, seen as the fief of the Gorakhnath Math, had been represented by its mahants since 1989. Adityanath, the current mahant, had won the seat five times since 1998. The by-election was necessitated when he resigned as MP after taking over as chief minister in March 2017.

But while the Nishad Party contested the 2017 Assembly elections under its own name, Akhilesh forced Pravin to contest under the Samajwadi symbol, the bicycle, in 2018.

Sources said that Akhilesh’s demand that the Nishad Party merge with the Samajwadis, and the smaller partner’s demand for more than one seat, were the sources of discord.

Sanjay told reporters on Friday night that he was not ready to accept Akhilesh’s demand that the Nishad Party candidates continue to contest on the Samajwadi symbol.

“We cannot ignore the existence of our party while being part of the alliance. We are a full-fledged political outfit with a promising future, and will expand in eastern Uttar Pradesh,” he said.

The party represents the OBC Nishad (boatmen) caste, which makes up 11 to 15 per cent of voters in the stretch between Varanasi and Gorakhpur.