The Liberal member for the Ontario riding of Brampton East is resigning, according to a Facebook post by the MP on Thursday.

Raj Grewal, who was a rookie MP for the Liberals, wrote on Facebook that he told the chief government whip yesterday he was resigning “due to personal and medical reasons.”

“To the people of Brampton East, serving as your MP has been the greatest privilege of my life,” Grewal wrote on Facebook. “This has been a decision I’ve struggled with for some time now and one I made with great difficulty and real sadness. But I feel I need this time to focus on my health and family.”

He also wrote he’s “hopeful” he will represent Brampton East again.

Grewal’s resignation seemed to come out of the blue; he had already been re-nominated by the Liberal Party as a candidate in the 2019 federal election, and a Liberal MP with whom iPolitics spoke minutes after the post appeared said it was the first she’d heard of his resignation.

Grewal had been under investigation by the ethics commissioner for accusations brought forward by the NDP’s Charlie Angus.

Angus suggested Grewal broke conflict-of-interest rules by inviting a construction executive, with whom he’d been associated in his non-political career as a lawyer, to events with Canadian officials during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s trip to India earlier this year.

Grewal is the second Liberal MP to announce his resignation this month. Montreal-area MP Nicola Di Iorio announced on Nov. 6 that he intends to resign. The MP said last April he would leave politics for family reasons, but later told a weekly newspaper he would remain an MP until his mandate ended in 2019. But in his most recent resignation letter, he said he’ll resign on Jan. 22, 2019.

Because of the timing of Grewal’s resignation, Trudeau will have to call a byelection for his seat before the next federal election. The Hill Times reported this week the prime minister plans to call byelections for empty seats in Outremont, York—Simcoe, and Burnaby South early in the new year, with plans to hold them each in February.

NDP MP Jagmeet Singh will run for a seat in Burnaby South. He previously sat as an MPP in Ontario in the provincial riding of Bramalea—Gore—Malton, which overlaps with Brampton East.

The Conservative Party had already nominated Ramona Benson Singh as their candidate in the riding of Brampton East in the 2019 federal election.

Grewal’s office could not be reached for comment. Here is Grewal’s full announcement:

Follow @CharliePinkerto