Manoj Pandey resigns as SP chief whip amid voting for 10 Rajya Sabha seats in UP

There are 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh and 11 candidates in the fray

Samajwadi Party (SP) chief whip Manoj Kumar Pandey on February 27 resigned from his post amid voting for 10 Rajya Sabha seats being underway in Uttar Pradesh.

The move comes as another blow to the party's president Akhilesh Yadav as eight MLAs of the SP reportedly did not attend a meeting called by him a day prior to the voting for the Rajya Sabha elections .

The party chief had called a meeting to brief the MLAs about the voting process of the Rajya Sabha elections, news agency PTI reported citing a senior party leader.

However, chief whip of the party in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly Manoj Pandey and seven other MLAs — Mukesh Verma, Maharaji Prajapati, Pooja Pal, Rakesh Pandey, Vinod Chaturvedi, Rakesh Pratap Singh and Abhay Singh did not attend the meeting, the report added.

Speaking to PTI, SP’s national spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary admitted that eight MLAs did not attend the dinner and meeting called by party chief Akhilesh Yadav. However, he did not mention the name of the MLAs.

The SP’s national spokesperson also said that the real stance of the MLAs who were absent from the meeting will be clear only on Tuesday during the voting for the Rajya Sabha elections.

There are 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh and 11 candidates in the fray. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded eight candidates and SP has named three candidates.

The BJP and the SP are the two largest parties in the 403-member state assembly with 252 and 108 MLAs, respectively. The Congress, an alliance partner of the SP, has two seats.