Lone INLD MLA Abhay Singh Chautala resigns
Chandigarh, Jan. 27: Indian National Lok Dal leader Abhay Singh Chautala, who was his party’s lone representative in the 90-member Haryana Assembly, Wednesday resigned as an MLA over the three new Central farm laws.
“I decided I cannot sit in the Assembly with those who bring resolutions favouring these laws,” Chautala said, referring to the BJP-led government's earlier move of bringing in a resolution backing the Centre’s three contentious farm laws.
Abhay, who is the younger son of INLD president and former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, drove to the state assembly complex with his supporters in his green tractor to submit his resignation.
“Abhay Chautala, who represents the Ellenabad constituency, came to me personally and tendered his resignation and I have accepted it with immediate effect,” Speaker Gian Chand Gupta said, adding his resignation letter was correct in all technical aspects.
Abhay has said in his resignation letter that he was resigning as farmers’ demands have not been met by the government, the Speaker told reporters here.
In his resignation paper, Abhay has referred to two letters he had sent to the Speaker earlier this month, telling him that if the Centre failed to accept farmers’ demand to repeal the new farm laws then his letters be treated as his resignation from the state assembly, Gupta said.
The Speaker had not accepted Abhay’s previous letters as his resignation on the grounds that “conditional letters” cannot be considered as such.
In the letter to Gupta,
Abhay, the 57-year-old general secretary of the INLD, had slammed the Centre for imposing the black laws” on farmers in an undemocratic way and said the farming community in the entire country is opposing these legislations.
After Abhay’s resignation, the 90-member Haryana Assembly now has 40 MLAs of the BJP, 10 of ally JJP, 31 members of the main opposition Congress and one MLA of Haryana Lokhit Party.
Seven members are Independents, out of whom five including Power Minister Ranjit Singh Chautala support the ruling combine.
Abhay’s move to resign is likely to come as a boost for workers of the party, which has been out of power for over 15 years in Haryana and has suffered a series of electoral setbacks in recent times.