Rejecting as bogus and baseless the Akali allegations that its MLAs were having second thoughts on their resignations from the State Assembly, the Punjab Congress has accused the Speaker of indulging in petty politics in connivance with the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).Reacting to the SAD charges, CLP leader Charanjit Singh Channi said neither he nor any of his party MLAs had received any intimation, either in writing or otherwise, asking them to appear before the Speaker to confirm their resignations. He dismissed all claims to the contrary as a total lie and said the Congress MLAs had made it clear, by twice boycotting the Assembly special session, that their resignations were final.In a statement, Channi said there was, in any case, no rule requiring personal confirmation of resignation and there were precedents set by the current Speaker of Punjab Assembly of accepting resignations without personal appearance. The Speaker was deliberately targeting the Congress MLAs at the behest of the Badal government, he said.
He made it clear that the question of the MLAs turning back on their resignations, which they had given in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict on the SYL issue, did not arise. It was a principled decision taken collectively by all the Congress members in the Punjab assembly of their own volition, they added.The MLAs, he said, did not appear before the Assembly Speaker since the party had received no formal communication inviting them to present themselves before the Speaker to confirm their resignations in person.Channi pointed out that the SAD had tried to spread similar disinformation on Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh’s resignation from the Lok Sabha by representing misleading facts on the issue. The SAD, he said, was notorious for indulging in all kinds of falsehoods in a desperate effort to befool the people ahead of the Assembly elections. But the people of Punjab knew how to sift the husk from wheat and would throw out the Badal-led SAD during the polls, they added.