The Samajwadi Party has suspended three of its seven rebel MLAs who had voted for BJP candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections of February last year.

The suspensions — whose term has not been specified — have reduced the party’s strength in the 403-member Assembly to 104.

The party’s X handle on Monday announced the suspensions of Abhay Singh, Rakesh Pratap Singh and Manoj Kumar Pandey — MLAs from Gosainganj, Gauriganj and Unchahar — for engaging in “communal and negative politics” against “farmers, women, youths, traders, service class….”

It did not mention the cross-voting but added a hint, saying: “Their time for a change of heart has passed. The others have got time because of their good behaviour.”

These unnamed “others” are understood to be Pooja Pal, Vinod Chaturvedi, Ashutosh Maurya and Rakesh Pandey — MLAs from Chail, Kalpi, Bisauli and Jalalpur — who too had voted for BJP candidates.

A senior Samajwadi leader, however, said all the seven MLAs had met party president Akhilesh Yadav before voting in favour of the BJP candidates, and obtained his consent.

“Manoj Pandey, Vinod Chaturvedi and Rakesh Pratap Singh received Y-category security from the Yogi Adityanath government a month after they voted for the BJP nominees,” he said.

“In short, some MLAs of a party requested their boss to let them go over to the ruling party, and the boss blessed them for some mysterious reason.”

He added: “The Samajwadi and BJP leaderships enjoy an excellent relationship. The ‘differences’ that we see are for popular consumption.”

All the eight candidates the BJP had fielded in the Rajya Sabha elections won. Two Samajwadi candidates — Jaya Bachchan and Ranjilal Suman — won but the third, Alok Ranjan, lost.

“The party knew from the beginning that its third candidate wouldn’t win because Akhilesh would do everything to help one of the BJP candidates, Sanjay Seth, his past fund manager,” the party veteran said.

The Samajwadis had sent Seth to the Rajya Sabha in 2016. He joined the BJP in 2019.