Days after the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) issued a whip to its legislators asking them to abstain in the event of a trust vote in the assembly, the party has not extended its support to the Ashok Gehlot camp.
Chief Minister Gehlot who is locked in a tussle with his former Deputy, Sachin Pilot on Saturday evening took to Twitter to say that the two BTP MLAs had announced their support to the government. Gehlot also shared pictures of the party leaders handing over the letter of support to him.
The ongoing political struggle in Rajasthan has seen several twists and turns, and the two BTP MLAs had also made headlines after they alleged that they were facing a 'hostage-like" situation.
"The situation right now in Rajasthan...it is almost as if we are hostages. For three days, we were in the MLA quarters. Many said, come with us, come with us...Today, three-four police cars followed me when I went out to the constituency. Police are not letting him move and have also taken my car keys," BTP MLA from Chorasi, Rajkumar Roat said in a video earlier this week.
Earlier too, fellow party MLA Ramprasad Dindor had vocalised his support for the Congress.
The support of two additional MLAs is likely to come as a relief to Gehlot. The Pilot camp is believed to have the support of around 18 MLAs, and the former Deputy Chief Minister had earlier claimed that his faction had enough members to ensure that the Gehlot-led government was in a minority.
While it remains to be seen how things play out, the Congress holds 107 seats in the 200 seat Assembly. The BJP comes second with 72 seats while the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party has three seats, and both the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) have two seats each and the Rashtriya Lok Dal has one seat. There are also 13 Independents.
The Congress has suspended the party membership of two MLAs for their alleged involvement in efforts to bring down the government. The Congress has sacked Pilot, Vishvenda Singh and Ramesh Meena from the Gehlot cabinet and suspended the party membership of Vishvendra Singh and Bhanwarlal Sharma.
After notices of disqualification were issued to them by the Assembly speaker on the basis of a complaint by government chief whip Mahesh Joshi, 19 MLAs, including Pilot, moved a writ petition in the high court challenging the notices.
(With inputs from agencies)
