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New Delhi, March 22 (PTI): Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday resigned as the member of Lok Sabha from Azamgarh constituency, deciding to retain the Karhal assembly seat he won in the recently held Uttar Pradesh polls.
By quitting as a Lok Sabha member, Yadav has sent out a signal that his focus is now the state politics after his party suffered a big defeat against the BJP in the recent assembly polls but emerged as the principal challenger.
There were reports that Azam Khan, another Samajwadi Party MP who like Yadav won in the assembly polls, has also resigned as Lok Sabha member but there was no confirmation from Speaker Om Birla's office about this.
Khan is currently in jail on criminal charges.
Though an MP is generally required to submit his resignation in person so that the Speaker can verify from him that he is quitting voluntarily and not under duress, former Lok Sabha secretary general P D T Achary said the Chair can use other means also to convince himself about the bonafides of a member's decision to resign if for some reason he cannot come personally.
Yadav met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla in Parliament House to put in his papers. The Samajwadi Party tweeted a short video of the party supremo handing over the resignation letter to Birla.
It is the practice of the Chair to announce the acceptance of a member's resignation in the House.
Akhilesh Yadav had won the Karhal assembly seat in Mainpuri district in the recently-held assembly polls, defeating Union minister S P Singh Baghel.
This was the first assembly election Akhilesh had contested. During his tenure as the state chief minister, Yadav was a member of the legislative council.
The BJP and its allies retained power while the Samajwadi Party-led alliance bagged 125 seats in the assembly polls which turned out to be a bipolar contest.
Besides him, the Samajwadi Party (SP) has four other members in Lok Sabha, including his father Mulayam Singh Yadav.