Yatin Oza’s resignation accepted by Speaker

Speaker Dhirubhai Shah accepted the resignation of Sabarmati MLA Yatin Oza on Thursday ending speculations over the issue. However, the uncharacteristic way in which Mr. Oza choose to exit has fuelled speculation as to whether Mr. Oza has finally decided to take political sanyas.

Health minister Ashok Bhatt said Mr. Oza has decided to call it a day in politics and concentrate on his profession as a high court advocate, a statement strongly denied by Mr. Oza. “Absolutely not, I think Mr Bhatt has been wrongly apprised of the facts. I have no intentions of retiring from politics,” he told The Asian Age. Mr. Oza said he intends to relax a bit for the time being before taking any decision on charting his future political career.

In fact leader of the Opposition Amarsinh Chaudhary said an enterprising and young lawyer like him could be an asset to his party. However Mr. Oza admitted he has no grievance against the chief minister or the state government.

“I have no regrets of leaving the party and had no desire to defraud the people’s mandate, which was for the BJP and therefore thought it fit to hand over the seat back to the party,” Mr. Oza said. Mr. Oza said he was as firm about handing over the resignation from the primary membership of the party.

Mr. Bhatt said it is not true that no tickets were given to supporters of Mr. Oza for the municipal corporation elections. “Mr. Oza had given enough indications of resigning in the past but has stuck to his guns this time,” industry minister Suresh Mehta said. He said he did not expect any more hiccups in the form of resignation from MLAs. The industry minister, however, said despite Mr. Oza having stated no reason for his resignation there has to be some reason to resign and the party’s efforts to compromise have failed. Mr. Mehta said there is little scope of taking action against Mr. Oza since he has also tendered his resignation from the membership of the party.

Earlier, in the day Mr. Oza verified his resignation during his meeting with the Speaker and said he was under no pressure to resign but has done it voluntarily.
Mr. Shah accepted his resignation.

Later speaking to reporters, Mr. Shah admitted that the number 182 is jinxed and despite the elections of Shehrkotda having been declared the Sabarmati seat will once again fall vacant. Mr. Shah said the state election commission has been informed that the seat has fallen vacant and is free to hold elections at an opportune time.

Republished from Asian Age