The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Thursday issued a whip to its six MLAs in Rajasthan, who merged with the Congress, to vote against the Ashok Gehlot government during the floor test. If they defied the whip, the MLAs would face action, and possible disqualification. The Rajasthan assembly session begins today, and after the BJP announced it would introduce a no-confidence motion, a floor test on Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's mandate is expected today.
Sandeep Yadav, Wajib Ali, Deepchand Kheria, Lakhan Meena, Jogendra Awana and Rajendra Gudha won the 2018 assembly elections on BSP tickets. But, they had applied for merger as a group with the Congress on September 16, 2019. The speaker had then passed an order declaring that the six MLAs be treated as an "integral part" of the Congress. For the Gehlot-led government, the merger meant that the Congress tally increased to 107 in a house of 200.
The Supreme Court, on Thursday, had refused to grant any interim relief on a plea of a BJP MLA seeking a stay on the Rajasthan speaker's decision that had allowed the six BSP MLAs to merge with the Congress. A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra, in a hearing conducted through video conferencing, briefly heard the parties including the counsel for BJP MLA Madan Dilawar who said that these six Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLAs have been wrongly allowed by the assembly speaker to merge with the ruling Congress party. On being told that the Rajasthan High Court is scheduled to hear the case on Friday, the bench, which also comprised Justices B.R. Gavai and Krishna Murari, said, "We are not passing any interim orders. Any transaction that takes place [in the assembly] will obviously be subject to the court's order."
The apex court then deferred the hearing on the plea to August 17. The BJP MLA has challenged the high court's order which had refused to stay the functioning of these six MLAs as Congress legislators.
