Maharashtra: Congress orders inquiry into cross-voting in MLC polls, absence of 11 MLAs during trust vote

Taking a serious note of the cross-voting by 7 party legislators in the recently held state council elections and the absence of 11 legislators in the trust vote won by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, the All India Congress Committee has instituted a probe by former Maharashtra in charge Mohan Prakash. Party general secretary KC Venugopal in an official release said,’’ Hon Congress President has deputed Mohan Prakash to Maharashtra to make an enquiry and submit a report in the wake of the recent political development in the state, with immediate effect.’’

Interestingly, Venugopal has not made a mention of cross voting by 7 legislators in the state council election and absence of 11 legislators during trust vote. Congress, which is an ally of NCP and Shiv Sena, has cut a sorry figure after these incidents. As reported by the Free Press Journal, the former chief minister and the member of G-23 Prithviraj Chavan had two days ago demanded inquiry and action against those indulged in cross voting. Thereafter, similar demand was pressed by former ministers Naseem Khan and Chandrakant Handore during their meeting with the former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi.

Handore, despite the allotment of 29 votes against the quota of 26 votes, got 22 votes that led to his defeat. This is despite Handore was the first candidate but the party’s second nominee Bhai Jagtap won that led to resentment in the party.

Further, 11 legislators remained absent during the trust vote on Monday. Party MLA Jitesh Antapurkar could not attend due to his wedding and another legislator Praniti Shinde was travelling abroad. However, due to lack of floor management by state leaders, other 9 MLAs failed to turn up. They included Ashok Chavan, Vijay Wadettiwar, Dheeraj Deshmukh, Zeeshan Siddiqui, Raju Awale, Mohan Hambarde, Kunal Patil, Madhavrao Jawalgaonkar and Shirish Chaudhary. These legislators argued that they were late due to traffic jams and their absence was not intentional.

Maharashtra in charge HK Patil had expressed serious displeasure over absence of 9 MLAs in particular despite they were in the city.

Published on: Friday, July 08, 2022, 08:44 PM IST