Chandigarh, July 18
BJP legislators of Haryana today resigned from the state Assembly to protest against the legislation passed by the Punjab Assembly annulling all water-sharing agreements between Punjab and other states.
Addressing a press conference here this evening, Mr Ganeshi Lal, President of the Haryana BJP, said the MLAs were resigning to protest against the Central Government's reluctance to stop the Punjab Government from going ahead with the controversial Bill.
On the support offered to the “anti-national legislation” by BJP MLAs of Punjab, Mr Ganeshi Lal said the BJP's opposition to the Bill had been made clear in the wake of the senior party leader, Mr Jaswant Singh, taking up the issue in Parliament.
The six BJP legislators of Haryana — Mr Krishan Pal Gurjar, Vaid Kapoor Chand, Ms Veena Chhibber, Mr Kanwar Pal Singh, Ms Sarita Narayan and Mr Chander Bhatia — were also present at the press conference. They said they would head for the Haryana Assembly Speaker's residence as soon as the press conference was over and hand over the resignation letters to the Speaker. “If the Speaker is not home, we shall leave the letters to the person who will receive us there”, Mr Gurjar, leader of the BJP legislators in the state Assembly, said.
When Mr Gurjar was contacted later, he said they had given their resignation letters to Mr Ram Narain Yadav, secretary to the Speaker. “I had a telephonic talk with the Speaker who asked me to give the letters to Mr Yadav”, Mr Gurjar told TNS.
The BJP decision follows the Congress move yesterday when all Congress MLAs of Haryana handed over resignation letters to the President of the party's state unit, Mr Bhajan Lal, to register their protest against the Punjab legislation. Mr Gurjar, when asked whether they had been influenced by the Congress party's step, said the Congress's was “false resignation”. “We are the ones who are actually resigning from the Assembly and this is only the beginning of our struggle to get the SYL completed”, he said.
Mr Ganeshi Lal said the promptness with which the Punjab Bill was given consent by the Governor, indicated that the Union Home Ministry was also hand in glove with the Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, who had placed the Bill in the Assembly. “The Bill was a blow to the unity and integrity of India.
Unfortunately, the Congress-led Central Government apparently does not see anything amiss with it”, the BJP leader said.When asked whether the BJP legislators would have resigned if the term of the Haryana
Assembly was not to be over in seven months’ time, Mr Ganeshi Lal said the decision of the MLAs to resign was linked to the Punjab legislation passed earlier this month. “The tenure of the Haryana Assembly has nothing to do with the resignation”, he said.
Mr Ganeshi Lal also announced that the statewide bandh call given by the BJP in Haryana tomorrow to protest against the Punjab legislation would also attract overwhelming response from people. He said essential services, public and private transports and government offices had been exempted from the strike call.
