Samajwadi Party (SP) chief whip Manoj Pandey on Tuesday resigned from his post amid the voting for 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. His resignation comes a day after he skipped a meeting called by party chief Akhilesh Yadav.
The development comes as a blow to SP president Akhilesh Yadav. His resignation was accepted and his nameplate was removed from outside the chief whip’s office.
In a letter to Akhilesh Yadav, the SP leader said, “You had appointed me as chief whip of Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh Assembly. I am resigning as the chief whip. Kindly accept my resignation.”
Later in the day, he met Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath amid indications that he may switchover to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Pandey is an MLA from Unchahar constituency in Raebareli. He was a cabinet minister in the previous Akhilesh Yadav government.
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Voting is underway in the elections for the 10 Rajya Sabha seats from Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday with eight BJP candidates and three from the Samajwadi Party in the fray.
Earlier on Monday, eight party MLAs, including Manoj Pandey, did not attend a meeting called by Akhilesh Yadav.
A senior SP leader, requesting anonymity, said that the party chief had called a meeting to brief the MLAs about the voting process of the Rajya Sabha elections. However, Manoj Pandey and seven other MLAs — Mukesh Verma, Maharaji Prajapati, Pooja Pal, Rakesh Pandey, Vinod Chaturvedi, Rakesh Pratap Singh and Abhay Singh did not attend the meeting, PTI reported.