Deputy Speaker of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Sartaj Madni of the Opposition People's Democratic Party resigned on Thursday after the Speaker's remarks on his conduct in the House.
As soon as the House re-assembled after the lunch break, he handed over his resignation to Speaker Mohammad Akbar Lone. “Since you have advised me to resign, I am doing so, and until a new seat is allotted to me, I will not return to the House,” he said.
The Speaker told him that he would not accept his resignation, but he left the House quickly.
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Earlier, Mr. Madni protested the Speaker's remarks in an interview to a local newspaper. “You cannot stop me from raising my voice against the violence in which a member of the Opposition PDP was injured by marshals,” Mr. Madni said.
Taking exception to Mr. Madni's intervention on Tuesday when PDP members were staging a protest, Mr. Lone told the newspaper that “it was not the duty of a presiding officer to defend the party he belongs to. On previous occasions too, he made some speeches and passed strictures against the presiding officer and his functioning. I hope that in future Mr. Madni will not cross the limit…by ignoring the fact that he is basically a presiding officer and not a spokesman of the PDP.”
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In his letter to the Speaker, Mr. Madni said: “You have indeed created a parliamentary history of your own during the last two years, and one would not like to dwell on it. But in your press interview, I think you have beaten even your own standards of functioning as the honourable Speaker….You have publicly and brazenly advised me to quit my post. I therefore tender my resignation from the post of the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly with utmost humility and my personal regard for all the honourable members of the House.”