Bhopal: Senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia finally shook hands with the BJP. No sooner had he taken up the membership, he was given the party ticket for Rajya Sabha.
He has been assigned the task to keep the flock together as the party doesn't want a repeat of last week's fiasco when 10 MLAs had returned to the Congress fold.
The script for Scindia’s entry was penned six months ago. The in-laws of Scindia, the royal family of Baroda, and former finance minister, the late Arun Jaitley, made efforts to bring him into the party.
The death of Jaitley last year, however, stalled the efforts of the BJP. Besides, there was resentment among the BJP leaders in the Gwalior-Chambal region against Scindia joining the party.
A senior leader of the party played an important role to douse the resentment, and only after that, Scindia was given the party membership.
Tuesday’s developments have changed the equations in the Vidhan Sabha. With the resignation of 22 Congress MLAs, the House strength has diminished to 206, provided the Speaker accepts the resignations. A party needs 104 MLAs to have a simple majority. Now, the various scenarios
*Scenario 1: If the Speaker accepts the resignation of the 22 MLAs, then the Congress with 92 members, even with the support of seven allied MLAs, will only have 99 members which will be five less than a simple majority mark of 104. Hence the government will fall.
The BJP could then meet the Governor and stake claim to form a government with 107 MLAs.
*Scenario 2: If instead of accepting the resignations, the Speaker orders a floor test in the Budget Session on March 16 then the BJP may move the court.
*Scenario 3: Realising that it will not clear the floor test, the Congress will ask all its remaining MLAs to resign, thus forcing a mid-term poll. It can also engineer defection/resignation by BJP MLAs as 10-12 BJP MLAs have been in touch with the Congress leadership.
The BJP can demand that the government prove its majority in the House, or even bring a no confidence motion against the government.
