Date:07/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/07/stories/2008050760571700.htm

National

Akhilesh Das resigns from Congress, RS

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader from Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Das resigned on Tuesday from the party as well as the Rajya Sabha, blaming it on a “coterie” around party general secretary and MP, Rahul Gandhi. He quit from all party positions.

Swiftly rejecting the allegations “with contempt,” Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan said they were “untrue.”

“This is the worst kind of political opportunism. It is due to the frustration of having lost his place in the Council of Ministers. Not even a ripple would be caused by his exit,” she said.

Mr. Das, who was Minister of State for Steel, was dropped from the Council of Ministers in the last reshuffle. His membership of the Rajya Sabha was coming to an end on November 25. In the recent Cabinet expansion, his Ministry was allotted to Jitin Prasad, also from Uttar Pradesh.

Amid speculation on his joining the Bahujan Samaj Party, Mr. Das submitted his resignation from the Upper House in a dramatic manner. Even as Chairman Hamid Ansari was making obituary references to tabla maestro Kishan Maharaj and Myanmar cyclone victims, Mr. Das walked up to him to submit his resignation letter, which the Chairman did not take. He then left the letter on the table of the Secretary-General and walked out of the House.

“I have lost faith and confidence in the Congress party and have decided to resign from the primary membership of the party,” he said in the letter.

He said he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh on the Congress ticket on November 26, 2002 and his present term expired on November 25.

Mr. Das, who is the son of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Banarasi Das, separately wrote to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and submitted his resignation.