In another setback to Congress and Samajwadi Party (SP), one MP each from the parties, Bhubaneswar Kalita and Sanjay Seth, resigned from Rajya Sabha on Monday.
This comes days after Congress' Sanjay Singh and SP's Surendra Singh Nagar gave up their Rajya Sabha membership.
Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu announced to accept their resignations in the house soon after the papers were laid on the table.
"I have received letters from Surendra Singh Nagar, Sanjay Seth, representing the State of Uttar Pradesh, and from Bhubaneswar Kalita, representing the State of Assam, resigning from their respective seats in the Rajya Sabha. I have accepted their resignations with immediate effect," Naidu said.
He said the members have resigned voluntarily and they wanted their resignations to be immediately accepted.
Seth and Kalita resigned on Monday while Nagar had resigned on August 2.
Also Read
According to sources, Seth and Nagar are likely to join the BJP.
Seth is the third MP after Nagar and Neeraj Shekhar to have resigned from the SP as well as the Rajya Sabha in the past one month.
With the exit of Seth, the SP is now left with just 10 members in the upper House.
Opposition Congress also suffered another jolt with its chief whip Kalita resigning in opposition of the party's stand on the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir.
Kalita, who hails from Assam, was one of the Congress' vocal leaders in Rajya Sabha and is likely to announce his next course of action in a day or two.
Earlier, Sanjay Singh, a close associate of the Gandhi clan and a member of the royal family in Amethi, had resigned from the Congress and Rajya Sabha membership.
After resigning, both SP's Neeraj Shekhar and Congress' Sanjay Singh joined the BJP.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content