Refuting party MLA Alka Lamba’s claim that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had “demanded” her resignation for not supporting a resolution in the Delhi Assembly on stripping late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of Bharat Ratna, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Saturday said neither any resignation has been sought from her and nor is anyone resigning from the party.
Addressing the media, Sisodia clarified the lines about Rajiv Gandhi were not part of the original resolution placed before the House. It was a handwritten amendment proposed by a party MLA and it cannot be passed in such a manner, he added.
“The aim of the original resolution, moved by Jarnail Singh, was only to help the victims of 1984 riots get justice. No resolution mentioning late PM Rajiv Gandhi was passed in the Assembly as being reported in the media,” Sisodia said.
The Delhi Assembly on Friday had adopted a resolution on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in which it was demanded that the Bharat Ratna awarded to Rajiv be withdrawn, but the AAP swiftly distanced itself from the reference to the late Congress leader.
The matter became a major issue within the AAP with Lamba alleging on Friday that she was “put under pressure” to support the resolution, which she resisted and boycotted.
On Friday Lamba had claimed to spoken to party supremo Kejriwal, who asked her to resign as MLA. “I am ready to do so,” she had said.
However, after the clarification from Sisodia, Lamba tweeted on Saturday, “I am extremely happy that the party has supported the award of Bharat Ratna to late Rajiv Gandhi. The country can never forget the sacrifice made by him. I am removing the copy of the resolution not passed by the House.”
AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj, who narrated the entire sequence of events in the Assembly, clarified any amendment to a resolution can become a part of the original only after it has been separately voted on by the House, which did not happen in this case.
Jarnail Singh, while moving the resolution in the Assembly, had mentioned Rahul’s name while reading the text and demanded that the Congress leader’s Bharat Ratna be withdrawn for “justifying the anti-Sikh riots”. Later, he had said though the reference to Rahul in the resolution was not there in the written copies, it was made orally and passed by the House by voice vote.