Upping the ante on SYL canal issue, all 42 Congress MLAs in poll-bound Punjab today resigned their membership even as the Parkash Singh Badal government constituted a 3-member panel to explore legal remedies after the Supreme Court yesterday ruled in favour of neighbouring Haryana in the water sharing dispute.
The MLAs marched to the state assembly after holding a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party and handed over their resignation to the secretary of the House in the absence of Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal to protest the SC order.
Under the rules, the resignation of an MP or MLA is accepted only if it has been handed to the Speaker in person. Assembly secretary Lakhanpal Mishra said he will submit the resignations to the Speaker and it was for him to accept or reject them.
Meanwhile, the Badal government has formed a three-member legal team to go into the issue and explore the possibility of a remedy after the apex court order.
"A legal team will study the judgement, examine it critically and then give some recommendations and advice to the government," Punjab Advocate General (AG) Ashok Aggarwal said. The team comprises three Additional Advocates General-- Kamal Sehgal, Vinod Bhardwaj and Rajat Khanna.
"By tomorrow evening we may be ready with the advice," he said.
The state's Congress leadership also decided to meet President Pranab Mukherjee to seek his intervention in the issue and demanded that a fresh tribunal be constituted to assess the availability of water in Punjab.
"We are going to ask for time to meet President and we will apprise him of the situation. President knows everything (about the issue)...We will present him Memorandum," Amarinder said after resignation by party MLAs.
Meanwhile, seeking to mine public sentiments over the emotive issue, Congress and Akali Dal leadership continued to attack each other.
Taking on the Badal government, Amarinder said it had failed to protect the interest of the state.
"If they are so concerned about the impact of the SYL verdict on Punjab, why have the Akali MPs not resigned their parliamentary seats?," asked Amarinder, accusing the Badal government of being "solely responsible" for the "mess".
The Punjab Congress chief demanded that Akali MPs
Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, Prem Singh Chandumajra and Sher Singh Ghubaya immediately quit their parliamentary seats to prove their interest in resolving the vexed SYL matter in the interest of Punjab.
"Till they do that, they really have no face to make allegations against others," he said.
Amarinder, who had quit his Lok Sabha membership yesterday, said all Congress MPs had handed over his resignation letters to him after the SC ruling yesterday, but he asked them not to press for acceptance and continue their fight on the SYL issue in Parliament.
Congress MP Ambika Soni said,"We have been asked to fight for the cause of Punjab in Parliament.
Asked if the Congress MLAs will attend the special session of the assembly called by the government on November 16 on the SYL canal issue, Amarinder said,"Once the resignation is given, the matter is over. It is up to the Speaker to accept it. We have nothing to do with assembly session. We will go to people."
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal hit back at Amarinder, calling the resignation exercise a "drama".
"Had Amarinder been sincere and honest he would have announced not to contest the forthcoming assembly polls instead of pitching for President's rule in the state for paving the way for smooth completion of SYL canal in the absence of any democratically elected people's government," he said.
Accusing the Congress of being responsible for the present situation, Badal reaffirmed that "not a single drop of water will be allowed to be taken out of Punjab and not a single brick will be allowed to be laid for construction of the SYL canal."
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) asked the Centre to work out a mutually acceptable agreement between the states concerned on water sharing.
"In view of the Supreme Court verdict on the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, the CPI(M) calls upon the Centre to work out a mutually acceptable and beneficial agreement on the sharing of waters with both the governments of Punjab and Haryana," the party's Politburo said in a statement.
A five-judge bench headed by Justice A R Dave yesterday ruled that the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004 was "unconstitutional" and that the state could not have taken a "unilateral" decision to terminate the water sharing agreement with Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh.
