AAP legislator Phoolka meets Punjab Speaker over resignation

Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and legislator H.S. Phoolka on Tuesday met Punjab Assembly Speaker Rana K.P. Singh regarding his resignation from the state Assembly.

Phoolka had sent his resignation to the Speaker via e-mail on October 12. However, the speaker had not accepted the resignation nor communicated about it to him.

"I have sent my resignation from the post of MLA vide letter dated 12.10.2018, but I have not received any communication from you regarding the same. Today I am appearing in person to communicate that I have resigned as a Member of Legislative Assembly and request you to kindly accept my resignation. After accepting my resignation, kindly inform the House during ensuing Session," Phoolka said in a communication to the Speaker on Tuesday.

Phoolka, who is the AAP legislator from the Dakha constituency in Ludhiana district and is a Delhi-based lawyer and activist, had earlier announced that he will resign from the Assembly if the Congress government in Punjab did not take action against those behind the incidents of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib and the police firing in October 2015 on those protesting against the sacrilege.

The AAP leader demanded the the government should register cases against former Chief Minister and senior Shiromani Akali Dal leader Parkash Singh Badal, SAD president and former Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and former Director General of Police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini.

The Justice Ranjit Singh Commission, set up by the Amarinder Singh government last year, had in its report, submitted recently, said that the then government did not do enough to control the sacrilege incidents.

It also held the then government accountable for the firing on sacrilege protesters by the Punjab Police which left two people dead and several injured in October 2015.

The AAP, which is the main opposition party in the Punjab assembly, had won 20 seats in the 117-member assembly in the assembly polls in Punjab in February last year.

--IANS

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