Samajwadi Party MLC from Uttar Pradesh Sarojini Agarwal on Friday resigned from the party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, The Indian Express reported. “The atmosphere in the Samajwadi Party has changed since Netaji [Mulayam Singh] is not the party chief,” she said. “I am an old Samajwadi, but was feeling uneasy in the current party structure.”

State Legislative Council chairperson Ramesh Yadav accepted Agarwal’s resignation, and issued a notification that her seat had fallen vacant.

Agarwal was associated with the Samajwadi Party for 22 years, and her term as MLC was to end in January 2021. State BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi said, “Following conflicts within the Samajwadi Party family, their leaders are seeking their political future in other parties.”

Agarwal is the third Samajwadi Party MLC to have resigned in less than one week. Two Samajwadi Party MLCs – Bukkal Nawab and Yashwant Singh – had resigned from the party on July 29. Nawab had indicated that he may join the BJP if he is invited. “The BJP is doing good work and PM Modi has given a good slogan of ‘Sabka sath, sabka vikas’,” he had said.