Lucknow, Jul 29 (IANS): The Congress is preparing to challenge the decision of the chairman of the UP Legislative Council, Ramesh Yadav, who has dismissed the Congress petition seeking disqualification of Dinesh Pratap Singh, a rebel Congress MLC from Rae Bareli.

Deepak Singh, Congress MLC who filed the petition, said on Wednesday, "I will challenge the Vidhan Parishad chairman's defective order quashing my petition in the high court or even in the Supreme Court, if needed. My petition had been pending before the chairman for last three years and I will request the high court for an early decision because justice delayed is justice denied."

Dinesh Singh had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli against Congress president Sonia Gandhi on the BJP ticket.

He formally joined the BJP in presence of its then president and now union home minister Amit Shah and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath at a public meeting in Rae Bareli in April 2018 without quitting his position as Congress MLC.

On May 9, 2018, Congress MLC Deepak Singh submitted a petition to Vidhan Parishad chairman Ramesh Yadav making a case for an outright disqualification of Dinesh Singh from the membership of the Upper House on the ground that he 'voluntarily' left the party and joined the BJP.

This, he said in his petition, had made the rebel MLC liable to action under the provisions of the anti-defection law.

According to the Vidhan Parishad chairman's order passed on July 27, Dinesh Singh, the defendant, claimed that Deepak Singh's petition seeking his disqualify cation was not 'maintainable' under the rules.

He pleaded that the Congress party suspended him sine die on April 18, 2017.

"Since I was suspended from the Congress for an indefinite period, it is wrong to say that I relinquished the party voluntarily," he submitted in his reply.

He also maintained that the newspaper clippings that the petitioner had submitted in support of his claims could not be considered and accepted as any 'proof' under the rules.

He also contested the petitioner's claim of being the Congress' 'chief whip' in the legislative council.

A member of the either house becomes liable to losing his membership under the anti-defection law if either they voluntarily give up the membership of their party

Rejecting Deepak Singh's petition, Vidhan Parishad chairman, Ramesh Yadav said the petition was not 'maintainable'.

"Considering the above cited facts, documents and rulings given by the Supreme Court, I am of the definitive view that the petition presented before me is not maintainable and deserved to be dismissed. The petition is accordingly dismissed," the operative order said.

Earlier, the Speaker of the UP assembly, Hriday Narain Dixit , had rejected the Congress petitions seeking disqualifications of two of its legislators Aditi Singha and Rakesh Singh. Both the petitions had been dismissed by the Speaker.

Interestingly, all three rebel Congress legislators -Aditi Singh, Rakesh Singha and Dinesh Singh -belong to Rae Bareli which is the parliamentary constituency of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.