Uttar Pradesh Congress vice-president and former MLA Lalitesh Pati Tripathi on Thursday announced that he had resigned from the party but remained tight-lipped on his next step. Mr. Tripathi is the great grandson of former U.P. Chief Minister Kamlapati Tripathi. Addressing journalists, Mr. Tripathi said he resigned from all posts of the Congress as well as his primary membership. He said he felt he had “lost the right” to continue in the posts.
His departure from the Congress comes as another blow to the party as it faces a daunting task of improving its present seat tally of seven in the upcoming 2022 Assembly election. U.P. has 403 seats.
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Though boasting of past influence in the Varanasi-Mirzapur region of east UP, the Tripathis have not had much electoral success in recent times.
Mr. Tripathi won the Assembly election from Marihan seat in 2012 but lost to the BJP candidate in 2017 by a huge margin despite an alliance with the Samajwadi Party. He also contested two Lok Sabha elections from Mirzapur seat — in 2014 and 2019 — but could only manage a third spot each time.
After Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was given the mantle of reviving the party in east UP, Mr. Tripathi worked closely with her and was often spotted in public events and meetings with her.
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Addressing journalists, Mr. Tripathi said he resigned from all posts of the Congress as well as his primary membership.
Though he maintained that the “Congress ideology” was still within him and that this ideology was also the “ aatma of the country,” he said loyalists of the party and old-timers were being “neglected” in recent times.
He said he felt he had “lost the right” to continue in the posts. Mr. Tripathi said he was not keen on joining any other party immediately, be it the SP or the BJP, and would discuss his future step with his supporters and party workers. “If the karyakarta s ask me not to contest the 2022 election, I am even willing to do that,” he said.