Bahujan Samajwadi Party leader RK Chaudhary on Thursday resigned from the party and accused party chief Mayawati of auctioning tickets to those who want to contest the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections to be held in 2017, reported PTI. "At election time, tickets are allotted to the person who pays the highest amount," a disgruntled Chaudhary said.
Chaudhary said the BSP has gone through a lot of changes after the death Kanshi Ram, the party's founder and that several senior leaders are not given the importance they deserve. The party, however, said that the 57-year-old's resignation will not impact the BSP. "There is no place for selfish people in BSP...Chaudhary was expelled earlier too for his selfish motives...his departure had no effect earlier and will not have any impact this time too," Ram Achal Rajbhar, BSP's chief for the state, said.
On June 22, senior BSP leader Swami Prasad Maurya had resigned as general secretary of the party, and leveled similar allegations against Mayawati. The leader of Opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly said the party was selling tickets to contest polls and corruption has seeped deep into the party.
A prominent face of the BSP in Uttar Pradesh, Maurya was also state president of the party till July 2012, before he was made general secretary. This move came as a blow to the BSP ahead of the state Assembly elections that are scheduled for early next year.
However, Mayawati had refuted Maurya's allegations and claimed that he was close to Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav. She had also said Maurya would have been sacked from his post had he not resigned, and that he had asked for tickets for members of his family.
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