Assembly Speaker accepts Khanna’s resignation - DHURI VIDHAN SABHA SEAT DECLARED VACANT, ECI TO HOLD BY-POLL

Wednesday, 21/01/2015

http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=123310&boxid=58136&uid=&dat=2015-01-21

Chandigarh : Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Dr Charanjit Singh Atwal on Tuesday accepted the resignation of sitting Congress MLA from Dhuri Arvind Khanna from the membership of Legislative Assembly.

“I have accepted the resignation with immediate effect and has ordered to notify it,” Dr Atwal told Daily Post, while confirming that Dhuri Vidhan Sabha seat in Sangrur district has been declared vacant and the notification to this effect is being sent to the Election Commission of India (ECI), which would hold by-poll within six months.

Giving the reasoning behind acceptance of the resignation, which was initially submitted in May last year, the Assembly Speaker said that since then it was kept pending and now when he again received a fresh letter from Khanna through a retired under secretary of Vidhan Sabha on January 13, he began the process to consider it.

“I saw Khanna’s posts on social networking website Facebook on January 18 and 19, wherein he had declared his resignation. Further, he made a call on my mobile phone on January 19, requesting me to accept his resignation,” revealed Dr Atwal, while stating that from available records and sources, he has come to the conclusion that Khanna has resigned voluntarily and his resignation letter was genuine.

“He has not even denied resigning in any section of the media,” the Assembly Speaker noted, while accepting the resignation.

JOLT TO AMARINDER
It has come as a big jolt to Congress Deputy Leader in Lok Sabha Captain Amarinder Singh, ahead of his much-hyped rally against drug menace scheduled in Amritsar on January 24.

Amarinder’s close aide and blue-eyed boy Khanna has also called it a day from politics after dropping an idea to join the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).

“I have decided to go ahead with my resignation from the Punjab Vidhan Sabha and active politics to devote my time to my family and business. I had decided to resign earlier in April last, but had not gone ahead that time for some last minute personal reasons. I have already conveyed about this decision to the party and the leaders,” Khanna said in a statement.

Khanna is the second Congress MLA to resign in less than a year. In March 2014, the party’s three-time legislator from Talwandi Sabo in Bathinda Jeet Mohinder Singh Sidhu had quit from the MLAship along with a former Congress Minister from Ludhiana Malkiat Singh Birmi to get re-elected on an SAD ticket. Sidhu and Birmi were also considered close lieutenants of Amarinder.

CHANCE FOR SAD
This has given a chance to the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) to gain absolute majority in the 117-member Vidhan Sabha. Presently, SAD has 58 MLAs (only one short of absolute majority) while its ally BJP has 12 members. Khanna’s resignation has further decreased the number of Congress MLAs to 44 while rest 3 are Independent MLAs, of which Rajnish Kumar from Mukerian has pledged support to Congress, while two associate sibling members of SAD - Simarjit Singh Bains and Balwinder Singh Bains - had recently announced to withdraw their support from the ruling party following denial of SAD ticket to any of them for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

KNOW KHANNA
Arvind Khanna, an entrepreneur-turned-politician, is spearheading a social empowerment and economic emancipation drive in one of the most backward regions of the state. Returning home after 16 years from the UK, and subsequently the US, where he received his education, Khanna was elected an MLA from Sangrur in 2002 and in 2012 from Dhuri constituency.

Ever since he joined politics, he was always seen on the right of Captain Amarinder Singh and was considered as the closest man of the former CM’s coterie.

He was feeling disgruntled after Captain’s bête-noir Partap Singh Bajwa was anointed Punjab Congress president in March 2013 and his discontentment was further aggravated when he was dropped from the post of reconstituted Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee in December,