Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh on Wednesday met the Speaker of the Lok Sabha to tender his resignation from Parliament as the Sutlej-Yamuna link canal dispute continues. On November 11, all 42 legislators of the Congress had resigned from the Punjab Assembly to protest against the Supreme Court striking down a Punjab law that dismissed a pact to share water with five other states through the Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal. Singh is the party’s chief ministerial candidate for the 2017 state elections.

The party on November 15 had sought clarity from the state government its agenda for the special Assembly session called to discuss the dispute. Singh had said that the Congress would not take any decision on participating in the session called by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, unless the government provided an agenda for the session. The session began on Wednesday.

Singh had also sought assurance from the government that any legislation passed during the session would be approved by the governor and the Centre. He had said that the government needed to resign from the Assembly and call for early state elections if it was not ready to declare its agenda, adding that the party was ready to extend its support to the government to protect the state’s water rights.

While pronouncing its verdict, the Supreme Court had ordered a status quo on a recent resolution passed by the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party government, through which the Punjab government had denotified the land acquired to construct the canal to return the plots to farmers. The Centre will now take over the construction of the conduit meant to distribute water among six states – Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Delhi.