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Updated: Aug 06, 2019 09:12 IST

Samajwadi Party (SP) on Monday suffered a third blow in three weeks when its Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Seth quit the upper house of Parliament. Seth, who still had nearly three years of his term left, is likely to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) along with Surendra Singh Nagar, another SP RS member, who had resigned on Friday.

It all started with Neeraj Shekhar, who had resigned his RS membership on July 15 and the next day joined the BJP.

With Seth’s resignation, the SP’s strength in the Upper House falls to 10. News agency ANI tweeted quoting Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu saying as: “I have received letters of resignation from Surendra Nagar, Sanjay Seth(SP MPs) and Bhuvneshwar Kalita(Congress). Resignations have been accepted”.

Sanjay Seth resignation comes as a major jolt to the SP for he has had a long-time closeness with both the SP founder and present chief patron of the party Mulayam Singh Yadav and SP national president Akhilesh Yadav. Unlike Neeraj or Surendra, Sanjay also held an important position in the party as its treasurer. Sanjay was nominated SP’s treasurer by Akhilesh Yadav when he took over the party in January 2017. Shortly before this, Akhilesh had sent him to Rajya Sabha in May 2016.

Seth is one of the big builders to have emerged from Lucknow after his real estate company that he had floated in 1985 evolved into a business conglomerate.

Unlike Neeraj Shekhar and Surendra Singh Nagar, Seth was actively involved in the party activities in 2019 Lok Sabha polls.