Jaipur: Congress turned BSP MLAs of Rajasthan are now fearing of losing their membership from assembly after a notice from the Supreme Court to submit a counter in 4 weeks on the issue of defection.
The apex court has given notice on the special leave petition filed by Bahujan Samaj Party challenging the defection of its MLAs. The court said that 4 weeks' time as the last opportunity is granted to the respondents.
Four out of six BSP MLAs namely Rajender Singh Gudha, Sandip Yadav, Wajib ALI and Lakhan Meena have reached Delhi on Wednesday late at night to meet senior leaders of the Congress party and senior counsels to submit their reply to court.
The MLAs after reaching Delhi told the media that their first priority is to save the membership and for this they will meet any leader, though two of them, Joginder Singh Awana and Deepchand Kheria are still in Jaipur and had met CM Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday.
This is being seen as factionalism in BSP MLAs. Sources said that the MLAs who left for Delhi are annoyed with the leadership of the Congress as they are still waiting for what they have been promised when they joined Congress and supported the Gehlot government during the last year’s political turmoil in the Congress party.
While Jogindar Avana said that our leader is Ashok Gehlot and Sonia Gandhi and I believe that the senior counsels of the party are aware of the case and will support us.
In the meantime the BJP state president Satish Punia said that the matter is with the court so he cannot comment on this.
The six MLAs had contested and won the 2018 assembly elections on BSP tickets but later defected to the Congress party in September 2019. The MLAs had submitted an application for the merger on September 16, 2019 and the Speaker issued an order on September 18, 2019.
The BSP and a BJP MLA have filed petitions challenging the merger of the six MLAs.
The merger was a boost to the Ashok Gehlot-led state government as the tally of the Congress increased to over 100 in the house of 200 MLAs
