Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and three-time MP Ravi Prakash Verma quit the party on Friday and is set to join the Congress.
In a letter addressed to party president Akhilesh Yadav, Mr. Verma said, "He found himself unable to work for the party due to adverse internal party atmosphere in Kheri and he was resigning from the primary membership of the party."
Ravi Prakash Verma, considered a prominent OBC leader in electoral politics, has been national general secretary of the party. He was elected from Kheri in 1998, 1999, and 2004 Lok Sabha elections and was later elected as the Rajya Sabha member on the party's ticket.
Ravi Prakash Verma is likely to join the Congress on November 6 in Lucknow in the presence of state chief Ajay Rai.
Talking to PTI over phone, Ravi Prakash Verma confirmed his resignation. When asked about joining the Congress party, he said, "It would not be a 'joining' but his 'ghar vapsi."
His father late Bal Govind Verma represented Kheri in the Parliament as a Congress MP in 1962, 1967, 1972, and in 1980 till his death, after which his wife Usha Verma represented the constituency in 1980, 1984, and 1989.
Later, she joined the SP.
Regarding his disenchantment with the SP, Ravi Prakash Verma told PTI, "After over two decades in SP, he now felt the party leadership had deviated from its founding principles late Mulayam Singh Yadav had set out, that was of change to ensure justice and to become the voice of the voiceless."
"However, today, the party leadership no longer seems to carry on the founding principles of the party when divisive forces are prevailing from Lucknow to Delhi."
Both the SP and the Congress are part of the opposition alliance INDIA bloc.
