Rajasthan HC notices to speaker, six MLAs on BSP-Congress merger

JAIPUR: The Rajasthan high court on Thursday issued notices to the state assembly speaker, secretary and the six legislators who were elected on BSP tickets but later merged with the Congress. After hearing the matter on two consecutive days, a single bench of justice Mahendar Kumar Goyal issued the notices and sought replies from the speaker and the six MLAs by August 11.

The BJP MLA and the BSP court had asked for disqualification of the MLAs but the court granted them no interim relief, which could have affected the Ashok Gehlot-government that might seek a trust vote during the assembly session commencing from August 14. With 19 MLAs under the now-sacked deputy CM Sachin Pilot revolting, the state’s Congress government appears in crisis.

The BSP-Congress merger, which was allowed by speaker CP Joshi in September 2019, was challenged by BJP MLA Madan Dilawar and BSP separately. Dilawar first petitioned the speaker but his complaint was rejected, so he approached the court. Since the Rajasthan Assembly Rule-6 (disqualification on the ground of changing party Rules 1989) allows only a member of the house to move a petition before the speaker, the BSP filed the petition directly in high court.

Senior counsels Harish Salve representing the BJP MLA and Satish Chandra Mishra representing the BSP argued before the single bench through video conferencing from London and Lucknow, respectively. “It was argued that the six MLAs be disqualified under provisions of Schedule X as they voluntarily gave BSP membership by their conduct of defecting to the Congress,” said advocate Ashish Sharma, who assisted Salve from Jaipur in the matter.

In the state assembly elections held in December 2018, the Congress emerged as the single largest party with 100 MLAs in the 200-member house and formed a government with support from its pre-poll alliance partner RLD that had one MLA.

The BSP petitioned the court that it supported Congress in government formation but after a few months dissent started appearing among the Independent and other legislators, including “certain Congress MLAs on account of the leadership”. “The court was told the Congress resorted to unethical, illegal and unconstitutional sources of defection by alluring the BSP MLAs with ‘benefits’ best known to them,” said advocate Dinesh Kumar Garg, who assisted senior counsel Mishra in the matter.

Questioning the merger, the BSP said, “The speaker did not ascertain whether there was split in original BSP at national or state level, what procedure was followed, where the meeting was held, who attended it and whether any resolution was passed for the merger. No notice was issued to BSP and the speaker accepted the merger under para 4 of Schedule X and passed an ex-parte order on September 18, 2019.”

The court was told that the anti-defection law never intended to treat a state unit of a political party as a separate entity for the purpose of benefit of para 3 of Schedule X and that the same yardstick should be applied for para 4 and, thus, the merger of a national party will have to take place at the national level.

The six BSP MLAs include Sandeep Yadav (Tijara), Wajib Ali (Nagar), Joginder Singh Avana (Nadbai), Deepchand Kheria (Kishangarh Bas), Lakhan Singh Meena (Karauli) and Rajendra Gudha ( Udaipurwati ).