The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader Abhay Chautala on Saturday sent his resignation to Haryana assembly speaker and sought disqualification of five MLAs for anti-party activities.
Speaker Kanwar Pal confirmed the knowledge of the letters sent by Abhay but said he had not read them. ``I would examine them on Monday or Tuesday’’, he added.
However, according to Vidhan Sabha procedure, the Speaker would give notice to 5 INLD MLAs and hold their hearing, take a decision on their membership and subsequently accept Abhay Chautala’s resignation as leader of Opposition in case of their disqualification.
The development appeared imminent given the events within INLD which originally had 19 MLAs. The number of INLD lawmakers had fallen to 17 after the demise of two MLAs, Hari Chand Middha and Jaswinder Singh Sandhu.
INLD had been under acute distress for the past few months as four of its MLAs — Naina Chautala (MLA, Dabwali) Anoop Dhanak (Uklana), Rajdeep Phogat (Dadri) and Prithi Singh (Narwana) — openly siding with Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) which was formed last year a split in INLD.
The final jolt came with the exit of the INLD MLA from Nalwa who deserted it and joined ruling BJP on Thursday. In an event of disqualification of the five MLAs named above, the INLD MLAs’ strength would thus, nosedive to 12.
{{/usCountry}}The final jolt came with the exit of the INLD MLA from Nalwa who deserted it and joined ruling BJP on Thursday. In an event of disqualification of the five MLAs named above, the INLD MLAs’ strength would thus, nosedive to 12.
{{/usCountry}}The Congress which has 17 MLAs in House would stake claim to be the main opposition party and have the leader of the opposition.
In his letter to Speaker sent on Saturday, Abhay said that these four MLAs had been indulging in anti-party activities as they had been supporting JJP and even canvassed for it during the recently concluded Jind by-poll. Gangwa also defected and joined the BJP without resigning from the membership of the Haryana legislature, he added.
The INLD leader said that as a consequence of the disqualification of the the five MLAs, he would not like to continue as the leader of the opposition.
BETRAYALS NOT NEW TO INLD
He scoffed at remarks of some opposition leaders that INLD would be finished following the split. He held that the party had witnessed many ups and downs in the past and faced desertions and betrayals. “But, the back-stabbers have never again returned to the Vidhan Sabha though the party has always managed to bounce back’’, he added.
NO ALLIANCE WITH BJP
Replying to a question pertaining to a truck with BJP, Abhay Chautala held that INLD had not written any letter to BJP in this regard and that the INLD would sue BJP president Subhash Barala for his remarks.