Stopped from speaking, Maya quits Rajya Sabha
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Tuesday tendered her resignation as a Rajya Sabha member, hours after she stormed out of the House in protest against the deputy chairman asking her to stop speaking on the excesses on Dalits in a Uttar Pradesh village.
“I will resign from Rajya Sabha today,” a visibly anguished Mayawati shot back when Deputy Chairman P J Kurien asked her to wrap up her speech as she had exceeded the three minutes given to her to make her submission.
Mayawati, whose term in the Upper House is till April next year, argued with Kurien saying how can she be prevented from raising the issue about her ‘samaj’ (community) and the Dalits. “I have not finished. You cannot do this.”
Mayawati met Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari on Tuesday evening and handed over her resignation letter. “I met the chairman to hand over my resignation letter. It is not good that I cannot speak in the House on issues close to me... When I got up to speak, the government did not allow me to complete. Their members stood up and interfered. It is not good,” she said after resigning.
Sources in the RS Secretariat said the decision on accepting Mayawati’s resignation lies with the Chairman.
Mayawati lost power in Uttar Pradesh in the 2012 Assembly elections and her party was reduced to just 19 seats in the 402-member House in the polls early this year. Besides her, there are five BSP members in Rajya Sabha.
Mayawati has given a threepage resignation letter to Ansari which officials say may not be accepted because members quitting Parliament are expected to submit their resignation in a simple format and without conditions.