Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned from the post of Vice President on Monday. He took this decision on the first day of the monsoon session. In a letter to the President, he cited his health reasons. The very next day, i.e. on Tuesday, the President accepted his resignation. After this, the Prime Minister also wrote a post wishing him good health. The immediate reason for Dhankhar’s resignation appears to be the notice of impeachment against Justice Yashwant Verma in the Rajya Sabha. It is worth noting that Dhankhar, as the Chairman, had accepted the proposal which had the signatures of 63 opposition members.
The floor leaders of the government were not aware of this notice and the signatures. Not only this, Dhankhar had tried to get the impeachment case to be heard in the Rajya Sabha first, which would have clearly gone in favour of the opposition because its proposal was accepted. On Tuesday, there was speculation about Jagdeep Dhankhar’s resignation throughout the day. There are many theories about this, but it was almost certain that one reason was Justice Verma.
The government had already announced that preparations are underway to bring impeachment proceedings against Justice Verma who is accused of corruptionThe government’s plan was to first pass it in the Lok Sabha and then send it to the Rajya Sabha. The impeachment notice in Lok Sabha has been signed by Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad and Anurag Thakur, along with 145 MPs from the ruling and opposition parties, making it clear that the government has been largely successful in building a consensus on the issue.
However, at around 3.30 pm in Rajya Sabha, Dhankar announced receipt of impeachment notice with signatures of 63 MPs and initiation of the process. Surprisingly, there was not a single MP from BJP and its allies among these MPs. This shortcoming must have been of BJP’s floor manager