SP leader Neeraj Shekhar quits as MP, may join BJP
ajya Sabha chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu has accepted Neeraj resignation, sources said.
New Delhi: Apparently upset with the Samajwadi Party (SP) leadership for sidelining him, son of former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, Neeraj Shekhar, on Monday quit his Rajya Sabha membership. Speculation is rife that Mr Shekhar could join the BJP fold and could be renominated to the Upper House of Parliament from Uttar Pradesh again by the saffron party.
Rajya Sabha chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu has accepted his resignation, sources said. Mr Shekhar’s term in the Upper House was to end in November 2020.
Mr Shekhar had been contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Ballia as a Samajwadi Party leader after his father’s death. He lost the 2014 polls and the party sent him to Rajya Sabha. But his demand to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Ballia had been rejected by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav who fielded Sanatan Pandey instead from there. Though Chandra Shekhar was not in the SP, its patriarch and former chief minister
Mulayam Singh Yadav never fielded any candidate against him from Ballia. After Chandra Shekhar death in 2007, Mr Yadav had fielded Neeraj Shekhar from the seat on a SP ticket.