Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath on Friday requested Governor Lalji Tandon to hold a floor test of the government in the Assembly session starting from March 16 on a date fixed by the Speaker, and approach the Union Home Minister for the release of 19 MLAs “held in captivity” in Bengaluru.
In the letter submitted to Mr. Tandon at the Raj Bhavan in Bhopal, Mr. Nath wrote, “We expect enquiry and investigation on the resignation letters submitted by BJP, allegedly of the captive Congress MLAs, is acted upon and completed early.”
The letters of 19 of the 22 rebel MLAs were carried by former BJP Minister Bhupendra Singh from a Bengaluru resort to the Speaker on Tuesday. So far, the Speaker has served notices on 13 of them asking them to appear before him in person and attest to having resigned of their own accord.
‘Democracy in danger’
In these disturbing circumstances, wrote Mr. Nath, the very edifice of democracy was in danger. “Trust of a transparent democratic process seems lost. It merits full investigation and enquiry, so that persons responsible for derailing the democratic institutional process are exposed and punished,” he wrote.
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Mr. Nath further assured the State’s people that they would not leave any stone unturned to “ensure the triumph of democracy and the legislative process, to uphold the Constitution and the values enshrined therein.”
In the letter with the subject: “Horse trading of MLAs by the Bharatiya Janata Party”, Mr. Nath goes on to detail instances of “ immoral, unethical and illegal acts of the BJP in Madhya Pradesh”.
Pointing out the first attempt on the intervening night of March 3 and 4, he wrote the “the midnight leading to whisking away of MLAs to Bengaluru is in public domain.” He claimed that the Congress foiled the BJP’s attempt at keeping in captivity the MLAs by using both allurement and force.
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Detailing the second attempt on March 8, he wrote the BJP had whisked away the 19 Congress MLAs in three chartered aircraft to Bengaluru. “Since, these 19 MLAs, of whom six are Cabinet Ministers, are incommunicado in a resort arranged by the BJP, nobody is allowed access and/or any sort of communication with them,” he wrote.
Then, he described the submission of their resignation by the BJP to the Speaker as “utter shock” and “most unusual act and conduct”, as none of them were present themselves to tender their resignations. He alleged that this demonstrated the BJP’s complicity in the “entire conspiracy and illegal actions”.
Stating that it raised questions of Constitutional propriety, legislative procedure and transparency, Mr. Nath contended the submission was dehors Constitutional and legislative provisions in force relating to the submission and acceptance of resignations of MLAs.
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Mr. Nath also elaborated the incident on Thursday when Cabinet Ministers Jitu Patwari and Lakhan Singh Yadav, along with rebel MLA Manoj Choudhary’s father, had gone to meet him in Bengaluru, “wherein all three of them have been manhandled by BJP goons as well as Karnataka State Police and were illegally detained”.
This was sheer mockery of the rule of law, wherein the leaders of the BJP had hatched a conspiracy of “abducting” the Congress MLAs to destabilise the duly constituted State government. There were various pictures and videos of the said incidents, he wrote.