In a big setback to Samajwadi Party, former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar’s son and Rajya Sabha member Neeraj Shekhar resigned from the membership of the Upper House of Parliament and also the party on Monday. 

Neeraj Shekhar’s Rajya Sabha term was to end on November 25, 2020. He is likely to join the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu accepted the resignation.

Shekhar said he had resigned voluntarily and not under any compulsion.

Sources in the Samajwadi Party said party’s member of Legislative Council, Ravi Shankar Pappu, nephew of late Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar and cousin of Neeraj Shekhar was also likely to resign from the membership of the Council and join the BJP. 

He was elected to the Legislative Council in January 2016 on Samajwadi Party ticket from the local bodies constituency and his term is to end in January 2021.

The sources said the BJP has promised to nominate Neeraj Shekhar as its candidate in the by-election to the Rajya Sabha caused by his resignation. Since the BJP has majority in UP Assembly, his re-election is a foregone conclusion. The sources said the BJP has also promised him another term after his term ends in November 2020.

The relations between Neeraj Shekhar and SP president Akhilesh Yadav have been strained for quite some time. Shekhar was demanding ticket from Ballia Lok Sabha seat, a traditional seat of his family, in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha election. Akhilesh Yadav had also promised to him that if he was not given the ticket, his wife would be fielded by the party. However, the SP chief ditched him and gave ticket to Satnam Pandey for the Ballia Lok Sabha seat.  

Sources said Shekhar had then decided to part company with the Samajwadi Party.

Shekhar contested polls for the first time after his father’s death. In 2008, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Ballia after the seat fell vacant following the death of his father. In 2009 Lok Sabha polls he won again from the same constituency.