SP MP Neeraj Shekhar resigns from Rajya Sabha, party; likely to join BJP: Reports

In a big setback for Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP), former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar's son and MP Neeraj Shekhar resigned from Rajya Sabha and the party on Monday, according to reports. Shekhar is likely to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). According to news agency PTI, Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu accepted the resignation. Shekhar met Naidu and told him he is resigning voluntarily and not under any compulsion, the sources said. 

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 Samajwadi Party, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav never fielded any candidate against him from Ballia.

After Chandra Shekhar death in 2007, Yadav had fielded Neeraj Shekhar from the seat on a Samajwadi Party ticket.