Anuradha Chowdhury quits SP

LUCKNOW: Days after she was stripped of the Minister of State status by the Akhilesh Yadav government, SP general secretary Anuradha Chowdhury today quit claiming the party did not take timely action to stop Muzaffarnagar riots which led to its electoral defeat.

"I have resigned from the party national general secretary post. The party has performed badly and Muzaffarnagar riots and ignorance of problems faced by common man led to it", she told reporters after submitting her resignation to SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Chowdhury was among 36 leaders having status of minister of state in the SP government who were sacked by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on May 20 after the party suffered drubbing in the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls.

Attacking controversial SP leader and state minister Azam Khan, Chowdhury claimed the party has given him a lot of power and he interferes in every work in Western Uttar Pradesh.

"Ask party workers, they are so afraid of him (Azam) and he works on his whims. The Muzaffarnagar riots could have been controlled, but timely action was not taken," she alleged.

Before joining SP, Chowdhury was in Rastriya Lok Dal (RLD) and is considered close to its chief Ajit Singh.