Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday approached the Supreme Court, challenging the State Legislative Assembly Speaker’s decision to postpone the floor test to March 26.
The court is likely to list the petition for urgent hearing on March 17.
Mr. Chouhan and nine other MLAs have sought a direction from the top court to hold the vote of confidence on the floor of the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly in the next 12 hours in order to test the majority of Chief Minister Kamal Nath and the Congress government.
The BJP said “horse-trading is at its peak” in the State presently.
“Any deferment of the floor test will further encourage horse-trading and would be in utter violation of the directions issued by the Governor and the law laid down by this court and the spirit and basic structure of the Constitution,” the BJP leaders contended.
The demand for a floor test arose after the recent departure of Jyotiraditya Scindia from the Congress.
The petition said 22 Congress legislators resigned on account of their dissatisfaction with Mr. Nath’s “non-fulfilment of promises made prior to elections”. They tendered their resignation to the Speaker on March 10.
It is believed that their resignations have reduced the present Congress government’s numbers in the House to a minority.
“Since the government appears to have lost the majority in the House and the Chief Minister had himself expressed willingness to conduct the floor test, the Governor, in exercise of his constitutional powers, in a letter dated March 14, directed the Chief Minister to conduct a floor test in the House and prove his majority on March 16, when the Budget Session of the Assembly begins,” the petition said.
However, despite the clear-cut directions issued by the Governor to the Chief Minister to seek a vote of confidence and prove his majority on the floor of the House on March 16 after the address of the Governor, the confidence vote has not been included in the business of the House for the day.
“The direction of the Governor has, thus, intentionally and wilfully been defied. The Chief Minister and his party leaders have publicly declined to conduct the floor test,” the petition said.
The petition reiterated that with the “lack of confidence and resignation” of the 22 MLAs, of which six have been accepted by the Speaker, the Kamal Nath government has been reduced to a minority.
“It has no moral, legal, democratic or constitutional right to remain in power even for a single day. All possible attempts are being made by the Chief Minister to convert his minority government into majority by giving all possible threats, allurements to the members of the Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha. The horse-trading is at its peak,” the petition said.
Whenever a situation has arisen over the issue of majority of a government in the House, the top court has always issued directions for immediate conduct of floor test.
Both the Speaker and the Chief Minister have deliberately defied the Governor and violated fundamental rights.
Apart from Mr. Chouhan, the other nine petitioners are Gopal Bhargava, Narottam Mishra, Bhupendra Singh, Rameshwar Sharma, Vishnu Khatri, Vishwas Sarang, Sanjay Satyendra Pathak, Krishna Gaur and Suresh Rai.
The petition has arraigned the Speaker of the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly, Mr. Nath, Principal Secretary of Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly, State of Madhya Pradesh through Chief Secretary and the Governor as respondents.