Badal will know who is doing drama when Punjab polls begin, says Amarinder Singh

After the Supreme Court announced its verdict on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link(SYL) water sharing agreement, Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh on Thursday resigned from his Lok Sabha seat and challenged Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in the upcoming Punjab polls.

"I have asked other MPs not to resign, but our MLAs will," Captain Amarinder Singh said about his resignation as MP, and on the statement of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal calling it a drama, he said, "He (Punjab Chief Minister) will know who is doing drama when the elections come, he keeps on saying unimportant stuff. I have been saying this for long that Parkash Singh Badal must retire, let somebody else come."

Amarinder, a former Punjab chief minister, has sent his resignation to the Lok Sabha Speaker, a copy of which was released to the media here, and he also sought a personal meeting with the speaker next week.

The party MLAs have also sent their resignations to the Speaker, Punjab Assembly, and will meet him tomorrow morning to personally hand over their papers.

The Supreme Court held as unconstitutional the 2004 law passed by Punjab to terminate the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal water sharing agreement with neighbouring states.

In his resignation letter, Captain Amarinder said he had decided to quit as a member of the 16th Lok Sabha from Amritsar constituency in Punjab with immediate effect "as a mark of protest against the deprivation of the people of my state of the much-needed Sutlej river water.

The Centre had said that it was having a neutral stand in the matter in which the court has recorded the stand of Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir.