The SAD-BJP today threw a bombshell virtually on the eve of the Vidhan Sabha session as the two parties strongly the Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Rana K P Singh to “resign immediately on moral grounds after Local Bodies minister Navjot Sidhu ordered a probe into complaints of a recruitment scam in the Nangal Pharmacy College in which all 44 posts went to the local Congress workers and their wards, all of them allegedly the Speaker’s loyalists and Congress workers”. “You cannot be expected to discharge your duties freely and fairly as long allegations and questions on this scam hang around you’” The SAD-BJP reminded KP Singh Rana of the high dignity and honour of the office he holds which must remain above suspicion and beyond reproach on probity in public life.Several SAD BJP Legislators today fired a letter to the Speaker in this regard and asked him also to recommend a judicial probe into the scam in order to uphold the dignity of his own office. They said that Rana K P Singh could not be exected to perform his duties as Speaker in the background of his own name coming under suspicion . He can resume his duties as Speaker only after he was cleared of all wrong doing by both the department as well as the judicial inquiry.
Stating that the Speaker also had a responsibility in the management of the Shivalik College of Pharmacy as ex-officio member of the management committee, the SAD-BJP said many questions remained unanswered and only a detailed judicial inquiry could unearth the magnitude of the fraud. “Why the GND University was asked to conduct a test of an institution which is under the jurisdiction of the Punjab Technical University (PTU). It is astonishing that all 44 candidates selected after a written test belonged to either families of Congress leaders of Nangal or were related to members of the Management Committee including the Principal and teachers.“ Demanding his resignation, based on a Vigilance Probe ordered by the Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu in the recruitment scam into the Nangal College of Pharmacy . “ The complaints on the scam have been found to be so serious as to warrant orders of Probe a Minister in the Congress Government, to which party you also belong, and since your name is also linked through names of of your close associates mentioned in the allegations, then it obviously follows that you must resign immediately to maintain the high honour and dignity of your office. Your resignation is absolutely necessary to ensure a free and fair inquiry without any influence from any high dignitary of the State”.The probe is to be conducted by Chief Vigilance Officer of the Department.
The SAD BJP MLAs further said that the speaker must quit also to ensure an independent a, impartial and fair probe can be held into the scam. “People close to him have been mentioned in the complaints to be probed.No one will believe that a fair and impartial probe against them is possible as long as you continue to hold this high office. Allegations of your influencing the probe would cast a cloud of suspicion on the Chair you occupy. In the light of this , you are owe it to the Chair you occupy to step down from it immediately and to keep the office of the speaker beyond suspicion ,” said the SAD-BJP letter.The letter signed by several MLAs pointed out that grave allegations had been leveled against a very close aide of the Speaker and the Nangal Congress block president, as well as against the Congress councilors and the former presidents of the local Congress Improvement Trust and Municipal Council. Nanagal is represented by the Speaker in the Vidhan Sabha. “After these developments, especially after the Minister ordering a probe, there is no justification for you continuing in office a minute longer.”The SAD-BJP said the Speaker also had a responsibility to guard the esteem of the august assembly and should simultaneously recommend a judicial inquiry into the entire issue so that an impartial inquiry could be conducted in the entire scam.The letter also made it clear that the SAD and BJP both had the highest respect and regard for the august chair of the Speaker and had urged the Speaker to resign on moral grounds alone. “We are confident you will take this request in the spirit in which it is made and quit without delay pending department and independent judicial inquiry into all complaints of recruitment scam in the Nangal Pharmacy College”, the letter added.