CHANDIGARH: The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) strength in the 117-member Punjab Assembly has fallen from 94 to 91 after Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan on Tuesday accepted the resignation of former minister Chetan Singh Jouramajra as an MLA.
Jouramajra had resigned from the party’s primary membership two days earlier and quit as an MLA on Monday. His resignation came a day after the Vidhan Sabha issued him a notice following a communication from AAP chief whip Baljinder Kaur, who sought his disqualification for leaving the party.
“The Vidhan Sabha secretariat had sent a letter to the MLA, seeking his response to the letter sent by the chief whip. He has been told that if he does not respond to the letter and appears before the Speaker on November 5, the Vidhan Sabha can initiate ex parte disqualification proceedings,” an official said.
The Vidhan Sabha had sought Jouramajra’s response within two days. With the Speaker accepting his resignation, the disqualification proceedings have become infructuous.
Jouramajra joined the BJP on Monday along with former AAP MLAs Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra and Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh. Pathanmajra, who represented Sanaur, and Vijay Pratap Singh, who represented Amritsar North, had also resigned from the Assembly. The Speaker accepted their resignations on Monday, and their seats were declared vacant.
Meanwhile, the AAP criticised the BJP, alleging that it was seeking to gain power in Punjab by inducting leaders facing rape charges, corruption allegations and cases related to firing at the Punjab Police.
The party said the BJP was inducting leaders who had been suspended, removed or distanced by other parties over their conduct, instead of building its own leadership and organisational base in Punjab. It also pointed out that the AAP had taken action against its own MLAs.
AAP's Majitha constituency in-charge Talbir Singh Gill also criticised Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh for joining the BJP, accusing him of using the Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura firing incidents for political purposes.
Addressing a press conference, Gill said Vijay Pratap had repeatedly claimed that he was conducting an impartial investigation into the two incidents and that the then Chief Minister, Captain Amarinder Singh, was not supporting him. Gill said the AAP had inducted him into the party, given him an election ticket and made him an MLA, but later began distancing itself from him over alleged links with the BJP.
Gill further alleged that Vijay Pratap had damaged the investigation into the cases at the BJP’s behest. He cited a video statement by Sukhraj Singh, son of a man killed in the Behbal Kalan firing, in which he expressed anguish over Vijay Pratap joining the BJP and accused him of helping destroy the case.
Gill alleged that the AAP government had to restart the investigation from scratch because of Vijay Pratap’s actions.