The Tribune
Chandigarh, December 9: Haryana Janhit Congress supremo and MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi is in no mood to relent. A week after he sought to know the fate of his five MLAs from Haryana Vidhan Sabha Speaker Harmohinder Singh Chatha, for which a response is still awaited, Bishnoi today demanded their disqualification from the assembly.
Accompanied by his lawyer, Satya Pal Jain, Bishnoi filed five separate petitions seeking disqualification of all MLAs, who had left the HJC and "merged" with the Congress on November 10 as was "pronounced" by the Speaker. ...
... Maintaining that the move of his MLAs was "unconstitutional" and "in violation" of the Anti-Defection Law, Bishnoi, supported by Jain, said there was no provision in the Anti-Defection Act that allowed an MLA to contest on one party ticket and join another party soon afterwards.
... Former BJP MP Jain said: "The Speaker, under the Constitution, has to act like a tribunal and we are confident that he will he will not play a partisan role. The Speaker, in allowing the merger, only acted in his administrative capacity. Let's see what he does with our appeals before we decide to proceed further. Anyway, what the MLAs have done is not permissible and in complete violation of the Anti-Defection Law."
He said the action of the MLAs was not a case of merger but a case of defecting from one party to another. "Therefore as per the Anti-Defection Law, all these five MLAs are liable to be disqualified from the membership of the house," he held.
