Samajwadi Party (SP) founder Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav on Wednesday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections 2022. The induction of Aparna Yadav into the BJP might prove to be a strong answer to the Samajwadi Party after many BJP leaders jumped ships to the SP. However, former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav congratulated Aparna for joining the BJP and took a dig at the saffron party saying that Samajwadi Party's ideology is expanding.
Apart from Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law, Aparna Yadav is an aspiring politician and also a singer. Aparna Yadav is married to Mulayam and Sadhna Gupta’s son Prateek, and comes from a Thakur-Bisht background, just like Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The newly inducted BJP leader addresses herself on social networking sites as 'Aparna Bisht Yadav'.
Aparna is also a trained and qualified classical singer. She completed her schooling from City Montessori School in Lucknow, and hold a master’s degree in International Relations and Politics from Manchester University, UK. Furthermore, Aparna is also an animal lover and runs an NGO, ‘B Aware’, which works for animal welfare. She has also been working on issues related to women safety and crimes against women.
Coming to her political career, Aparna, wife of Mulayam Singh Yadav's son Pratik Yadav, step-brother of Akhilesh Yadav, had unsuccessfully contested the 2017 polls against BJP's Rita Bahuguna Joshi from Lucknow Cantt. Currently, speculations are high she will be contesting from the same seat as well, however, the final announcement is yet to be made.