Lucknow/New Delhi: Ahead of the upcoming general elections, BSP Lok Sabha MP from Ambedkar Nagar Ritesh Pandey on Sunday resigned from the party’s primary membership and joined the BJP in New Delhi.
In his resignation letter addressed to BSP president Mayawati, Pandey said he has come to the conclusion that the party does not need his service as neither has he been called for meetings for a long time nor has the party leadership spoken to him.
He shared his resignation letter on X. “For a long time, neither am I being called to attend party meetings nor has the party leadership spoken to me. I made numerous efforts to get in touch with and meet you (Mayawati) and the top leadership of the party but it did not yield any result,” Ritesh Pandey wrote in the resignation letter.
He added, “During this time, I continuously met workers and supporters of other parties in my area and was also involved in various works going on in the constituency. Hence, I have come to the conclusion that the party does not need my service and presence.”
“…So, I do not have any other option apart from resigning from the primary membership of the party. The decision to break the relationship with the party is a difficult decision from the emotional point of view,” the letter further read.
Ritesh Pandey has been representing the Ambedkar Nagar constituency since 2019 after he defeated his BJP rival Mukut Bihari in the general elections. Prior to this, he served as a MLA from the Jalalpur constituency between June 2017 to May 2019. He was appointed as the leader of BSP in the Lok Sabha in January 2020.
The former BSP MP has been an active member of multiple parliamentary committees including the Standing Committee on External Affairs, the Joint Parliamentary Committee to examine the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, and the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
Pandey has been ranked 19th in the Parliamentary Business Survey among 539 MPs in the country. He is also the youngest MP to appear in the Top 20.
