New Delhi: Nearly four months after Congress MLAs boycotted the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting in September, the number of MLAs who have submitted their resignations to Speaker C P Joshi has been officially put at 81.
Additionally, all the MLAs have withdrawn their resignations, and the same has been accepted by Assembly Speaker C P Joshi, the Rajasthan High Court was informed on Monday.
According to an affidavit submitted in the High Court, Assembly Secretary Mahavir Prasad Sharma has stated that “the letters of resignation of 81 MLAs, of which five were photocopies, were received by the Hon’ble Speaker which were submitted by six MLAs. The petitioner It is not correct to say that there have been 91 resignations.
The affidavit has been filed in connection with a PIL filed by Deputy Leader of the Opposition Rajendra Rathore, in which the Speaker and Secretary of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly are respondents.
The official figure is slightly lower than what was being campaigned by the Gehlot camp since September.
Angered by the Congress high command’s “unilateral” decision to elect a new chief minister of Rajasthan – said to be Sachin Pilot – without consulting them, most Congress MLAs had skipped the CLP meeting and submitted their resignations to Joshi on 25 September . Gehlot was in the race for the post of National President of Congress at that time.
In his affidavit, Sharma has also stated that “all the MLAs have personally appeared before the Hon’ble Speaker and submitted their letter of withdrawal.”
Citing the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly, Sharma states that “before accepting the resignation, a member of the Legislative Assembly may withdraw his resignation. Since all MLAs have withdrawn their resignations before their acceptance, Therefore the resignations became non-permanent in the eyes of law.
He submits that since the “Speaker has rejected the resignations of the Members of the Legislative Assembly on 13.1.2023, the present petition has become infructuous”.
Hearing the matter on Monday, a bench of Justices Manindra Mohan Srivastava and Chandra Kumar Songara granted three days time to Rathore to file a reply and listed the matter for January 20.
In his PIL filed in December, Rathore had argued that the people of Rajasthan “are in a state of confusion whether at present they are governed by a government which is legitimately established or not. The strength (of the Legislative Assembly) has come down to 109″. It has happened because 91 MLAs have resigned. So what is the status of this government?”
The PIL sought judicial intervention in the matter and a direction to the Speaker to take a decision on the resignations within seven working days.
The developments come ahead of the last budget session of the Gehlot government which begins on January 23.
