Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday formally handed over his resignation, which he had earlier sent by mail on November 11, to lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.
Captain Amarinder met the Speaker at her office in Parliament House to give in his resignation as member of the 16th lok Sabha in the requisite proforma, and verbally conveyed to her that he had resigned on the SYl issue.
He told the Speaker that he had decided to quit his lok Sabha membership in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict on the SYl issue, as a mark of solidarity with the people of Punjab, which had been seriously impacted by the apex court’s judgement.
The SYl agreement has become a major political issue in the poll-bound State in which Singh, a former Chief Minister, is leading his party’s campaign to capture the power from the SAD-BJP alliance, which has been ruling for a decade.
He had said that he decided to quit the lok Sabha “as a mark of protest against the deprivation of the people of my state of the much-needed Sutlej river water.”
Singh was elected to Parliament defeating BJP heavyweight and now Finance Minister Arun Jaitley from the prestigious Amritsar lok Sabha seat.
Capt Amarinder had resigned within minutes of the Supreme Court announcing the verdict in the SYl case, while party MlAs had en masse quite their Assembly seats on the issue.