Renowned advocate and former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader HS Phoolka has asked the Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Rana Kanwar Pal Singh to accept his resignation as Vidhan Sabha member or he would knock the door of the country’s Apex Court.
Phoolka, who had submitted his resignation as Dakha MLA in October 2018, has asked the Speaker to accept his resignation so that by-polls could be held in his assembly segment along with the two vacant seats — Jalalabad and Phagwara.
“If the Speaker fail to accept my resignation, I may approach the Supreme Court,” he declared in a letter written to the Speaker.
Phoolka, who has resigned from Vidhan Sabha in October last, and also from AAP in January this year, is not attending the ongoing monsoon session that started on Friday.
Phoolka had earlier too written to Speaker Rana K P Singh saying he will not have a rethink over his resignation. He had earlier said the Speaker had assured him that he would take a considered decision on his resignation.
It was earlier believed that the lawmaker had not submitted his resignation in a proper format.
Phoolka had stepped down to press for immediate action against those involved in desecrating the Guru Grant Sahib in the state in 2015.
While quitting as MLA, he had claimed the Congress government had not taken the desired action against those named in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission's report on sacrilege incidents.
In his fresh communication to the speaker on Sunday, Phoolka wrote, "I had originally submitted my resignation in the month of October 2018, thereafter, I had personally appeared before you and had also submitted a one-line resignation from the Vidhan Sabha.”
"After that I had resigned from the Aam Aadmi Party. You had called me for a hearing on March 23, 2019 and in that meeting also, I had made it clear to you that I have resigned from the party and my resignation may be accepted,” Phoolka stated.
"And I had further told you that in case you feel my resignation is not in the (proper) format, then tell me in what format it should be, (and) I will sign that," he wrote.
"Despite all this, till today my resignation has not been accepted as yet. I request you to immediately accept my resignation so that the bye-elections for the Dhaka constituency could be held along with those for Phagwara and Jalalabad constituencies," he said.
BJP's Som Prakash and Shiromani Akali Dal's Sukhbir Singh Badal, who were the MLAs fromNotably, Phagwara and Jalalabad respectively, were elected to the Lok Sabha from Hoshiarpur and Ferozepur respectively in the general elections earlier this year.