Kuldeep Bishnoi fails to appear before panel again

Kuldeep Bishnoi on Friday failed to keep his date with the Privileges Committee...

Kuldeep Bishnoi on Friday failed to keep his date with the Privileges Committee, which is looking into a petition for his disqualification from the Lok Sabha on the charge of defection from the Congress. The petition against Bishnoi, who represents Bhiwani constituency in the Lower House, has been filed by Congress member from Faridabad Avtar Singh Bhadana.

The committee is mandated to conduct a preliminary inquiry and submit a report to the Speaker, who is empowered to disqualify a member for defection under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution.

Bishnoi, along with his father, former Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal, floated his own regional party, Haryana Janhit Congress (BL), during a rally at Rohtak on December 2 last year. Bhadana petitioned Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, saying Bishnoi, by launching his own party, had voluntarily given up his membership of the Congress, which called for his disqualification from the House.

While floating his own party, Bishnoi had also announced his post-dated resignation, supposedly effective from June 1, from the Lok Sabha. The conditional resignation, totally mismatching the relevant format and procedure, failed to find acceptance. Since then, Bishnoi has publicly maintained that the Congress has hatched a conspiracy to block his resignation and thus avoid a by-election in Bhiwani. At the same time, he has stayed away from the committee proceedings.