Bangarappa resigns LS seat

Former Karnataka chief minister S Bangarappa, who quit BJP earlier this week, on Thursday resigned his Lok Sabha seat and joined Samajwadi Party to become its president in the state.

Bangarappa (72) had joined BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections and had won the elections from Shimoga in Karnataka. After resigning his Lok Sabha seat, Bangarappa joined SP in the presence of its president and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav here.

Speaker Somnath Chatterjee announced in the Lok Sabha ahead of the question hour that he had received a letter from Bangarappa resigning from the house.

"His resignation has been accepted," Chatterjee said.

Bangarappa, who had been in and out of the congress had joined BJP ahead of the polls apparently after being ignored and overlooked by the party high command. His son Kumar Bangarappa too had followed him to join the saffron brigade.

Bangarappa was chief minister of Karnataka during 1992-94. He had left Congress in 1983 to form the 'Kranti Ranga'.

Announcing his intention to join Samajwadi Party last month, he had said, "I entered Karnataka legislative assembly in 1972 as a socialist and now decided to join sp which is also working on the same principle of socialism."

Bangarappa, who was made Karnataka Samajwadi Party president by Yadav, said the SP and Yadav have never compromised on their principle of maintaining equidistance both from the BJP and Congress.

He brushed aside a question that he left the saffron party upset over its failure to make him the state party chief.

"What was there in the BJP which it could have offered," he shot back adding that Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had given him posts like PCC chief and chief minister without asking Yadav said Bangarappa's joining the party will help strengthen the organisation in the south.

Bangarappa said he has organised a party convention in Bangalore on March 25.