BENGALURU: In a growing trend of opposition

members of Parliament (MP) resigning from their seats ahead of tenure and joining the

, across the country,

MP K C Ramamurthy on Wednesday resigned from his post and the party.

Speaking to TOI, Ramamurthy said he had resigned from the party on his volition and that there was no force or reason from the BJP to quit the Congress.

“I have quit the membership of the Rajya Sabha and the

party of my own volition. There was no intent of the BJP in trying to pull me across the aisle,” he said.

Ramamurthy said he was “missing” out on the growth story of India and thus wanted to get “involved”, while not spelling out his intent to join the BJP.

“I quit the party for the simple reason that I wanted to be part of the New India growth story, nothing more,” he said.

Ramamurthy said while he had tendered his resignation to Vice-President and Chairman of Rajya Sabha Venkaiah Naidu, he had also sent a letter to all India Congress committee (AICC) interim president Sonia Gandhi saying he was resigning from the primary membership of the party.

“ I have sent my letter of resignation to madam (Sonia Gandhi),” he said.

With the resignation of Ramamurthy, the Congress numbers in the RS drops from 46 to 45 and strengthens the BJP and NDA numbers vis-a-vis the opposition ranks.

The former IPS officer, who rose to the level of Additional commissioner of police and retired from service, was elected to the RS in 2016.

Ramamurthy was elected by the Karnataka assembly, amidst a lot of drama that year with seven JD(S) MLAs violating the regional party whip and voting for the Congressman instead of the party candidate and now MLC

.

Reacting to the resignation of Ramamurthy, Karnataka Pradesh Congress committee (KPCC) president

expressed his surprise and also said that the former MP had not given any indication or information of him resigning.

“While I am surprised at the resignation of Ramamurthy, we cannot stop someone who is planning to quit. We do not know what kind of pressure tactics are being applied by the BJP. This has been witnessed in our neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh, wherein six TDP MPs, some of whom were facing corruption charges, quit the party and defected to the saffron outfit. But this is the brazen level of politics being played by the BJP,” he said.