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UP Vidhan Sabha speaker dismisses pleas to disqualify two Congress MLAs
The speaker dismissed the petitions against both the lawmakers saying they “lacked substance”, a Vidhan Sabha spokesperson said.
In a major relief to rebel Congress MLAs Aditi Singh and Rakesh Singh, Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit on Monday rejected their party’s pleas to disqualify them. The speaker dismissed the petitions against both the lawmakers saying they “lacked substance”, a Vidhan Sabha spokesperson said.
Reacting to speaker’s ruling Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Aradhana Misra said a legal opinion is being taken on the issue.
“The Congress party had filed two petitions before the Assembly speaker under the tenth schedule for disqualification of Aditi Singh and Rakesh Singh from the a Assembly. I believe the evidence that we had presented and the rules were overlooked,” Misra said.
“We have full confidence that on the basis of the evidence that we presented we will get full justice from the court,” she said.
Misra has also filed separate petitions in a Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court. The bench of justices Dinesh Kumar Singh and Pankaj Kumar Jaiswal have listed the matter on July 14 with a direction to serve notices to the MLAs using their email ids and WhatsApp numbers.
The Congress party had earlier petitioned the Speaker seeking disqualification of its Rae Bareli MLA Aditi Singh and Harchandpur MLA Rakesh Singh.
Aditi Singh was served a show-cause notice for attending the special session of the Vidhan Sabha on October 2 last year, defying the party’s whip. She had not responded to the notice. She was sent a reminder for her reply but she refrained from responding to it after which the party had filed the disqualification petition.
Rakesh Singh and Aditi Singh, Congress MLAs from Harchandpur and Sadar respectively in Rae Bareli, won the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly election on Congress tickets. In the case of Rakesh Singh, the Congress leader in UP Assembly, Aradhana Misra, had alleged that he worked against the party during the 2019 general elections by working for the BJP candidate from Rae Bareli from where Congress president Sonia Gandhi was contesting.
