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SP leader quits, says caucus running party
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NewsByte on 24 May, 2008 03:08:44
 
By OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Lucknow, May 24: Former UP minister and senior Samajwadi Party leader, Naresh
Agarwal, has resigned from the membership of the UP Vidhan Sabha as well as from
the Samajwadi Party.
Mr Agarwal said that a "caucus" within the Samajwadi Party had made it
difficult for him to remain in the party.
"I raised certain issues several times on the party forum but you never paid
any attention to them. Instead, I was viewed with suspicion by the caucus," he
said in a letter addressed to the Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Mr Agarwal did not name any leader in his resignation letter. Mr Agarwal further
pointed out that when he suggested an alliance with the Congress, he was termed
a "Congress agent" by same leaders who run the caucus.
"But now those same party leaders, who used to abuse the Congress, are ready to
become a stooge of the Congress. The party no longer caters to the needs of the
oppressed and the downtrodden — it pampers corporate leaders and film stars,"
he said.
Mr Agarwal, who represented the Hardoi Assembly seat in the Vidhan Sabha, said
that he would decide his next political destination within two or three days.
Sources close to the former minister, however, disclosed that he was likely to
join the BSP.
Mr Naresh Agarwal shot into prominence when he split the Congress in October
1997 to form the Loktantrik Congress that saved the Kalyan Singh government from
collapse after the BSP pulled out of the coalition. The Loktantrik Congress was
known for its politics of pressure and blackmail and all its legislators were
made minister by the Kalyan Singh government.
In 2001, the then chief minister, Mr Rajnath Singh, dismissed Mr Agarwal from
the council of ministers on grounds of indiscipline.
He later joined the Samajwadi Party and served as a minister in the previous
Mulayam Singh government.