Times News NetworkLucknow: Samajwadi Party’s chief whip in UP Assembly, Kamal Akhtar, resigned from his post on Tuesday. The resignation comes amid reports of his differences with SP’s Moradabad MP Ruchi Veera.However, Akhtar claimed that he resigned on the directions of the party president Akhilesh Yadav. Party sources confirmed that he was asked to resign.“I am a small functionary of Samajwadi Party and follow all the orders of the party chief Akhilesh Yadav. My leader said I don’t have to continue on this post further so I followed his direction and will continue to follow his directions in future as well,” Akhtar said.Asked if there was any resentment that led to his resignation, he said there was none and hailed Akhilesh Yadav. On his differences with Ruchi Veera and if his resignation was linked to it, Akhtar said both are different issues. “These things happen in a family. If someone wants to link the two, I can’t help it,” he said.On speculation that he was likely to be assigned a bigger role in the party, Akhtar said he was the national president of the SP’s Yuvjan Sabha for 12 to 14 years, represented the party in the Rajya Sabha and worked on different posts in the party’s organisational set-up. “I will continue to perform whatever duty my party chief assigns me,” he said.Akhtar, a former minister, was made the chief whip in July 2024 shortly after party’s Unchahar MLA Manoj Pandey resigned from the post and later sided with the BJP in the Rajya Sabha polls.Asked if Akhtar’s resignation as chief whip was due to differences with her, Ruchi Veers said this was something that our national president will know better. Asked about her tiff with Akhtar, she said “We have to contest elections with BJP and not amongst ourselves. Recently I had appraised the national president about the indiscipline in the party. Now if he has taken steps to ensure that discipline is maintained, I welcome and appreciate it because he always respects women and makes efforts to ensure that discipline is maintained in the party.”Both Akhtar and Ruchi Veera have been pointing fingers at each other over certain recent developments and SP chief called them last week to thrash out the differences between them. At the meeting, both were asked to explain their respective positions threadbare so that the matter could be resolved.Ruchi Veera claimed that she was being sidelined by party functionaries in Moradabad, her name and photographs were dropped from banners and posters during party events and she was not being invited to such programmes. She pointed fingers at the party’s Moradabad city president Iqbal Ansari and questioned the conduct of some other functionaries, suggesting that Kanth MLA backed them.Dismissing the allegations, Akhtar recalled how he had worked hard during the 2024 Lok Sabha to help Ruchi Veera secure the party ticket and deployed all his resources to ensure her victory in the polls. He said after Ruchi Veera won the polls, she distanced herself from the local functionaries. He said former MP ST Hasan and party MLAs Nawab Jaan and Nasir Qureshi have publicly acknowledged their displeasure over the issue.Akhtar further claimed that SP MP was deliberately highlighting the issue as a pressure tactic on the party leadership as she wanted a ticket for her daughter Swati Veera from Moradabad Sadar seat in the 2027 assembly polls. Things turned a bit tense when MP representative Khushnood Ali accused Kamal Akhtar of groupism – a charge that was rebuffed by the latter. Here Ruchi Veera jumped in to Khushnood’s defence and Akhilesh had to intervene, asking the two sides to exercise restraint.The meeting concluded with the party president announcing that he would get the allegations from both the sides probed before reaching a conclusion. Akhilesh is learnt to have assured the two sides of ‘visible’ action against anyone found wanting.
