Madhya Pradesh: Shivraj govt gets majority in house sans Congress MLAs

Former CM Kamal Nath slammed the move after the MP Assembly was convened on Tuesday

madhya-pradesh-assembly

The Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government in the state completed the formality of proving its majority in the house, in a sudden assembly session convened on Tuesday. All 92 Congress MLAs remained absent and the motion of confidence moved by the Bharatiya Janata Party government was passed by voice vote.

The move of suddenly convening the session to get the confidence motion passed has been strongly criticised by the Congress. “What was the haste when enough time was given to prove majority? Why adopt double standards on coronavirus prevention? Strictness to follow rules for common people but repeated flouting of rules by the government. It is just day one now. They will say one thing and do something else,”ex-chief minister Kamal Nath tweeted.

The notification for the assembly session was issued around midnight on Monday and the session convened at 11 am on Tuesday. As the Speaker N.P. Prajapati tendered his resignation before the session, the proceedings were conducted by BJP MLA Jagdish Devda, who had been the party’s nominee for the post of deputy speaker during the regime of the earlier government. Devda had lost in the House to Congress’Hina Kanwre.

The BJP, which has 106 members in the House, also got the votes of three SP and BSP MLAs during the confidence motion. The governor had given the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government a period of 15 days to prove majority in the house.

Ex-legal and legislative affairs minister P.C. Sharma, while talking to THE WEEK said that the assembly had been adjourned till March 26 and due to the COVID-19 situation, Congress MLAs had left for their respective constituencies. “The BJP, which used sly ways to dislodge a majority government convened a hasty session to pass the confidence motion. But the actual floor test will come up after the by-polls. Let’s wait for that,”Sharma said.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan took oath as the new chief minister of Madhya Pradesh on Monday night. Later, he went to the secretariat and reviewed the COVID-19 situation in the state, announcing curfew for the districts of Bhopal and Jabalpur that have reported positive cases.

New chief secretary

In another expected move, the BJP government appointed 1985 batch officer Iqbal Singh Bains as the new chief secretary of the state in an order issued on Tuesday afternoon. This brings to an end the very short tenure of M. Gopal Reddy, also a 1985 batch officer as chief secretary. Reddy was made the chief secretary on March 17 at the height of the political turmoil in the state. Though his selection as next CS by the Kamal Nath government was cleared on March 5, when he was appointed as the OSD in chief secretary office, he would have taken charge only on April 1 after the retirement of ex-chief secretary S.R. Mohanty. However, Reddy's appointment to the top bureaucratic post had been preponed. He lost the post exactly a week later on Tuesday.

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