The political tussle between Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and rebel leader Sachin Pilot continued for the 10th day with no end in sight, even as Gehlot went to the extent of calling him "nikamma aur nakara" (useless and incompetent) and produced a Congress MLA to claim Pilot had tried to give him a huge bribe to change sides.Pilot said he would reply to all of Gehlot's missives once the case filed by him and 18 Congress MLAs in the Rajasthan High Court against attempts to disqualify them is over, as he does not want to prejudice the court in any way.
He also asserted that he and his group continues to be in the Congress and he won't be deterred from his campaign to remove Gehlot as the chief minister, irrespective of any number of abuses heaped on him. He further threatened to take legal action against the MLA who had made the bribe allegation.Congress MLA Giriraj Singh Malinga, who had switched over from the BSP, has alleged that Pilot had offered him Rs 35 lakh to cross over to the BJP with him, but he refused. Gehlot asserted that one should not go by the "baby face" of Pilot. He told the media in Jaipur that Pilot was conspiring with the BJP for the last six months to bring down his government. "Nobody believed me when I talked of this conspiracy... Nobody knew that a person with such an innocent face will do such a thing," he said.Gehlot is planning to convene a one-day Assembly session for a floor test, to demonstrate that he has the numbers to run the government. A whip will accordingly be issued to Pilot and his brigade, asking them to vote for the government; they will then be obliged to do so on the floor of the house; or else the Anti-Defection law will come into play and they will stand disqualified as members of the House.
Gehlot is banking on the support of 102 MLAs, even after making an allowance for exit of Pilot’s faction in a House of 200.LEGAL BATTLE: The legal battle being fought in the Rajasthan High Court since Friday is likely to draw to a close on Wednesday. Both sides are firming up their strategies, depending on how the court decides the case.
The High Court had asked the Speaker on Friday not to act against the rebels at least until 5.30 pm on Tuesday, in view of the hearing on their petition.Eminent lawyer Harish Salve, who is representing Pilot’s faction, told the High Court that the Rajasthan Speaker has already made up his mind without hearing the rebel MLAs and he is just waiting for the court proceedings to be over, so that he can disqualify them from the House.
The slugfest in the High Court continued and the arguments remained inconclusive for the second day on Monday; senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi will take over on Wednesday, on behalf of the Pilot group, from Salve and complete the submissions.
Earlier, advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi took three hours of the morning session to make out a case on behalf of Speaker C P Joshi for non-interference by the court in the matter, as the Pilot faction’s petition was immature; unless some action is taken against the rebels, their case is not legally tenable, it was pointed out by Singhvi.
Salve, in turn, insisted that members are free to defy the party whip issued outside the House. He also ripped into Singhvi's dependence on the Constitution Bench's ruling on the Tenth Schedule, asserting that it nowhere says that defying the party whip outside the Assembly amounts to defection.
He argued that intra-party dissent, however shrill it may be, cannot be grounds to initiate the disqualification proceedings, until it spills over to the extent of supporting another party.He said false allegations have been made against Pilot that he is hobnobbing with the rival BJP; Pilot has personally nailed the lie at least twice since the rift surfaced, as he continues to be a member of the Congress party to which Gehlot belongs and he has done nothing wrong to warrant an expulsion."If a group of MLAs says that the party leader is incompetent, and the party leader complains to the Speaker that they have defected, and the Speaker issues notice for disqualification, can they not approach the court against it?" Harish Salve asked.
He underscored that what has been witnessed till date is inner-party dissent for which the Tenth Schedule (anti-Defection Law) cannot be invoked, since the notice amounts to violation of freedom of speech of the MLAs.NOTICE TO UNION MINISTER: In a related development, Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, against whom an FIR has been registered for trying to buy out the Congress MLAs as revealed in the phone tapes, was on Monday served a notice by the Special Operations Group of the Rajasthan Police. The SOG is conducting an investigation into allegations of a conspiracy to pull down the Rajasthan government.
