Neeraj Shekhar, who resigned from the Rajya Sabha as a Samajwadi Party member on Monday, joined the BJP on Tuesday after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.

Neeraj, who is the son of former Prime Minister and socialist leader Chandra Shekhar, stunned political circles on Monday when Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu announced his resignation in the House. His resignation comes as an advantage for the BJP as it reduces the strength of the Opposition in the Upper House.

The BJP lacks a majority in the Rajya Sabha and in the second tenure of the Modi government the party has been striving hard to outsmart the Opposition through defections.

In the recent past, four TDP members and the lone member of the Haryana-based INLD in the upper House had joined the BJP.

Neeraj quit his Rajya Sabha seat as a Samajwadi member a year before his term was to end and is likely to be fielded as a BJP candidate to pave his return to the House. He had been upset with the Samajwadi Party after not being fielded as a candidate in the Lok Sabha polls from his home turf Ballia in Uttar Pradesh.

“I joined the BJP as working with the Samajwadi Party was getting difficult. I felt I should work under PM Modi and Amit Shah if I want to work for the development of the nation,” Neeraj said after joining the BJP. Neeraj belongs to the upper Thakur caste.

Focusing on the heartland, the BJP on Tuesday appointed Swatantra Dev Singh as the new state party chief, replacing Union minister Mahesh Chandra Pandey. The choice of Singh, an OBC leader with an RSS background, was seen as an effort to consolidate the BJP’s support among the backward castes. The earlier state party chief was a Brahmin.

Singh is now a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government. The Uttar Pradesh chief minister had on Monday met BJP president Shah in Delhi and a ministry shuffle in the state is said to be on the cards.