Nine months after he left the Congress to join the Samajwadi Party, Imran Masood on Wednesday switched to the Bahujan Samaj Party.

Welcoming him into the party fold, BSP supremo Mayawati said the Muslim community is convinced that it is the BSP and not the SP that can get rid of the "hateful and cruel politics of the BJP".

Masood joined the SP in January before the 2022 assembly elections.

The leader, who contested the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Saharanpur on a Congress ticket, had courted controversy over his hate speech in which he allegedly threatened to "chop" Narendra Modi "into pieces".

"Imran Masood is a well-known name in the politics of Uttar Pradesh and especially Western UP. He met me today along with his close associates. He has left the Samajwadi Party and has promised to work with full force and good intentions in the BSP. He is warmly welcomed," Mayawati said in a series of tweets in Hindi.

"At the same time, seeing his tremendous zeal and enthusiasm to work in the party, he has been given a special responsibility and made the convener of the BSP in western UP to strengthen the party at every level and especially bring the minority community with the party," the former chief minister said.

Masood and others joining the BSP ''before the local body elections is a good sign for the politics of UP in the sense that the Muslim community is also convinced that it is the BSP and not the SP that is needed to get rid of the hateful and cruel politics of the BJP," Mayawati said.

(Inputs from PTI)