Lucknow, Feb 14 (IANS): Samajwadi Party (SP), National Secretary Ram Govind Chaudhary, on Wednesday wrote a letter to SP President Akhilesh Yadav requesting him not to accept the resignation of senior leader Swami Prasad Maurya, as he was countering the "poison" being spread by the RSS and BJP.

Earlier, on Tuesday, Maurya had resigned as National General Secretary of the SP, accusing the leadership of discriminating against him and not defending him over his remarks.

In his letter to Yadav, Chaudhary said, "Under your successful leadership, every worker and leader of Samajwadi Party is struggling to reduce the effect of this poison of communalism and hypocrisy. The party's National General Secretary Swami Prasad Maurya is also strongly opposing this poison of the BJP and RSS, due to which he is being targeted by the BJP and the Sangh."

He said Maurya comes from a backward community and because of his "fighting instinct" he has a special place in society.

“It is in the interest of the Samajwadi Party that he continues as an office-bearer. Therefore, I insist that you do not accept his resignation," said Chaudhary, who is a former Leader of Opposition, in his letter to Akhilesh Yadav.

It may be recalled that Swami Prasad Maurya had made controversial statements on the Ramcharitmanas and the Ayodhya temple after which the SP had distanced itself from his remarks. Maurya had joined the SP from the BJP before the 2022 polls and unsuccessfully contested the Assembly polls from Fazilnagar. His daughter Sanghmitra is a BJP MP from Badaun.

In his resignation letter addressed to Akhilesh Yadav, Maurya had said, "I continued trying to increase the support base of the party in my own way. I tried to bring back the self-respect of the tribal people, Dalits and Backward Classes, who had knowingly or unknowingly fallen into the BJP's web and joined the party, by awakening and cautioning them. When I tried, some small and big leaders of the party tried to discourage me by saying 'this is Maurya’s personal statement', but I did not take it otherwise.”

He added that due to his personal efforts, the party's support base increased and added that if there is discrimination against someone holding the post of National General Secretary, "then I think there is no justification for continuing in such a post. I will continue to work to strengthen the party without any post."

Maurya, who is considered a prominent leader of the Backward Classes in UP, has also been a member of the Legislative Assembly five times, a minister in the UP Government, leader of the House and Leader of the Opposition (2012-17) when he was in the BSP.

He was the labour minister in the Yogi Adityanath Government between 2017 and 2022 and quit the BJP ahead of the last Assembly elections.