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Akhilesh Yadav, Azam Khan resign from Lok Sabha
Yadav’s resignation from his Azamgarh parliamentary membership indicated that he would concentrate more on UP politics. With 47 seats won in 2017, the SP was a weak opposition, but now with 111 MLAs, it is a strong opposition in the UP assembly
LUCKNOW Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav and his party colleague Azam Khan on Tuesday resigned as members of the Lok Sabha from Azamgarh and Rampur, respectively, days after they were elected to the Uttar Pradesh assembly.
Earlier, there was speculation that Yadav and Khan would leave their assembly seats and retain Lok Sabha membership.
The former UP chief minister submitted his resignation to Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept back to power in the state. Samajwadi Party leader and Rajya Sabha member Ramgopal Yadav accompanied him.
Yadav’s resignation from his Azamgarh parliamentary membership indicated that he would concentrate more on UP politics. With 47 seats won in 2017, the SP was a weak opposition, but now with 111 MLAs, it is a strong opposition in the UP assembly.
While Yogi Adityanath will take oath as the chief minister of UP for the second successive term at a ceremony in Lucknow on Friday, former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is likely to don the mantle of the leader of opposition in the UP assembly. Yadav is likely to be elected as the SP legislative party leader on Saturday when a meeting of the newly-elected lawmakers will be held in Lucknow.
Ahead of his resignation, Akhilesh Yadav met SP’s office-bearers and supporters in Karhal on March 18. On Monday, he consulted SP’s Azamgarh office-bearers.
Yadav had contested his first UP assembly elections and won. He bagged 1,48,000 votes to win the Karhal assembly seat by a margin of 67,504. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath won the Gorakhpur Urban seat by a margin of over 1,00,000 votes.
The SP won all the 10 assembly seats in Azamgarh. It also swept all seats in Kushambi, Ambedkarnagar, and Ghazipur districts.
Khan, who sent his resignation through Akhilesh Yadav and Ramgopal Yadav to Birla, won the assembly election for the 10th time. He has been in jail since September 2019 as he faces 80 criminal cases. Khan’s wife, Tazeen Fatima, is a Rajya Sabha member while their son, Abdullah, was elected to the assembly this month.
The BJP won 255 seats in the 403-seat UP assembly.
With Akhilesh and Azam’s resignation, now there will be Lok Sabha by-polls for Azamgarh and Rampur seats.
Meanwhile, UP chief minister-designate Yogi Adityanath resigned from the membership of the state legislative council. His resignation, submitted on Monday, was accepted on Tuesday.
Adityanath sent his resignation to UP legislative council chairperson Kunwar Manvendra Singh and it was accepted, said an official of the UP legislative council secretariat. Yogi’s term as the MLC (member of legislative council) was due to end on July 6 this year.
