Senior SP leader Veerpal Singh Yadav resigns from party

Senior Samajwadi Party leader and former Rajya Sabha MP Veerpal Singh Yadav resigned from the party along with his supporters Wednesday, saying the party has "deviated" from the principles.

The leader, considered close to SP patriarch and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, alleged lack of support from the party to him in his "fight against communal forces".

"The party has deviated from the principles for which it was founded by Mulayam Singh Yadav and I am resigning from it," Yadav told newspersons here.

"We used to oppose communal forces and the wrong policies of the government and were not afraid of going to the jail for this ... We used to stand solidly, specially with those belonging to the weaker sections and minorities but for the past 20 months, the SP has not been able to oppose the damaging policies of the BJP," he said.

He claimed that none of the party's office-bearers contacted him when he was booked for allegedly "exposing the reality of some BJP workers who were targeting a section of society in the garb of kanwariyas."