Six months after he stepped down as the member of Punjab Vidhan Sabha in April this year, Bholath MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira on Tuesday withdrew his resignation while declaring to fight out the “disqualification proceedings” against him with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

It has been learnt that Khaira has requested Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Rana KP Singh that he wanted to withdraw his resignation. However, the final decision on the issue would be taken by the Speaker.

Khaira’s move to withdraw his resignation came a week after Jaiton MLA Master Baldev Singh, who, along with Khaira, had rebelled from AAP, and had contested the 2019 elections from Faridkot earlier this year, had returned to the party fold.

Both Khaira and Baldev Singh had contested the election in May on the tickets of Punjabi Ekta Party (PEP), a new political outfit floated by Khaira after resigning from AAP in January this year. Khaira had contested 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Bathinda, where he finished at distant third.

Justifying his decision, Khaira said that he has been approached by hundreds of respectable and elected people of Bholath constituency, who have advised him against resigning from the assembly, as it will only force an unnecessary by-election upon the electorate.

“It is an open secret, that by-elections only vitiate the atmosphere through blatant distribution of liquor, drugs, money etc, besides causing a huge loss to the public exchequer,” he said.

“Therefore, acting upon the advice of my legal team, sentiments of people of Bholath and my colleagues, I have decided to withdraw the resignation,” said Khaira.

He said that AAP leaders were free to prove their case of disqualification pending against him, for which he has a befitting reply to be given to these dictators at the appropriate time.

Taking AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal head on, Khaira said that the “way I was suspended orally, I was later verbally conveyed that I stand expelled from the party too”.

“Kejriwal acted purely as a dictator and never bothered to follow his own constitution, while throwing me out of AAP,” said Khaira adding that it was Kejriwal who created a virtual split in the party “by meekly apologizing to drug mafia Bikram Majithia” over his repeated drug allegations.

Khaira said that when he and others opposed his cowardly apology, Kejriwal became vindictive towards him and other MLAs.

“Kejriwal, without summoning any meeting of party’s legislature wing, unconstitutionally removed me as the leader of opposition over the Twitter on July 26, 2018.

This brazen and unconstitutional act showed that Kejriwal works like a

dictator and not a democrat,” he said.

Further lashing out at Kejriwal, Khaira said: “Unable to digest our opposition over ideological differences, Kejriwal once again, behaving like an autocrat, suspended him and Kanwar Sandhu MLA, on grounds of anti-party activity on November 3, 2018, once again verbally without following proper party constitution.’

He said that they learnt about their suspension only through electronic and print media and that they were neither given an opportunity to present their case nor served any show cause notice nor given anything in writing regarding their suspension.

Khaira said that similarly, later, a party office bearer again informed him, that he has been expelled from the party and was free to go anywhere.

Daring Kejriwal to produce any receipt of his regarding his suspension orders, Khaira said that Kejriwal and his bunch of sycophants are now likely to create or forge record to justify their illegitimate and unconstitutional act of suspending him and Kanwar Sandhu.

“The dictatorial and cowardly character of Arvind Kejriwal has been exposed time and again and this is precisely the reason why all prominent people including Parshant Bhushan, Yogendera Yadav, Kumar Vishwas, HS Phoolka, Gurpreet Ghuggi, Dr Dharamvira Gandhi etc, who were the architects of AAP, were humiliated and shown the door,” said Khaira.

He said that Kejriwal is a “double faceted leader” and never shies to take a complete U-turn, be it apology to Bikram Majithia or sucking up to Congress for an alliance or his recent support to bifurcation of J&K into UT’s, while demanding full statehood for Delhi.