A petition filed by BJP lawmaker Madan Dilawar against the merger of all 6 BSP MLA’s in the state with Congress party last year will be heard by Rajasthan HC on Monday.
Speaker’s decision allowed merger that increased Congress strength in the house for which petiton was filed against.
The petitioner has questioned the inaction of the speaker on his complaint in March 2020 for disqualification of 6 legislators under th 10th schedule of Constitution
The Ashok Gehlot camp within the Congress appears to possess a tenuous majority within the Rajasthan assembly at the moment: it’s 101 legislators (excluding the speaker and another lawmaker who is indisposed, but including allies); a rebel faction led by former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot has 22 lawmakers; the BJP-led grouping has 75. It’s easy to ascertain what the disqualification of six legislators (of the 101) could do to the government’s majority.
According to the petition, speaker CP Joshi declared the six BSP MLAs – Sandeep Yadav, (Tijara), Wajib Ali (Nagar), Deepchand Kheria (Kisangarh Bas), LakhanMeena (Karauli) and Rajendra Gu\dha (Udaipurwati) – as having merged with the Congress on September 18, 2019. Dilawar,the MLA from Ramganj Mandi constituency in Kota district, has challenged the validity, legality and correctness of the Speaker’s order.
Earlier, he moved a petition before the Speaker on March 16 under the 10th schedule praying for disqualification of those six MLAs. that is still undecided.
Late on Sunday, the BSP issued a whip to the six MLAs to vote against the Gehlot government in any proceedings of the House. A signed communication by BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra said all six MLAs were elected on the election symbol of the BSP issued by its national president Mayawati and were bound by a celebration whip to vote against the Congress government .
It also rejected the contention that that they had duly merged their legislative party unit with the Congress. “All six MLAs are issued separate notices wherein they need been informed that since BSP may be a recognised national party intrinsically there can’t be any merger under para (4) of the Xth Schedule at the state level at the instance of the six MLAs unless there’s a merger of the whole BSP everywhere at the National Level