Uttar Pradesh Assembly’s Deputy Speaker Nitin Agarwal on Wednesday tendered his resignation from the membership of the House and the Samajwadi Party.
Nitin Agarwal, a rebel SP MLA, was elected as deputy speaker of the assembly on October 18 last year. He was a minister of state during the previous Akhilesh Yadav-led SP government.
Nitin Agarwal, elected on SP ticket to UP assembly in 2017, had defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party along with his father Naresh Agarwal, a former minister and joined the ruling party ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Naresh Agarwal quit the SP on being denied re-nomination to Rajya Sabha by the party.
Despite defection to BJP, he was technically regarded as an SP legislator till the petition seeking his disqualification was disposed of by the assembly speaker. Speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit had rejected the petition filed by the SP seeking his disqualification. This technicality allowed the BJP to justify the decision to field Nitin Agarwal, a Vaishya, for the post of deputy speaker traditionally reserved for the largest opposition party, which the SP is in the 17th UP assembly.