Gehlot moves MLAs to Jaisalmer, Congress knocks on Supreme Court door

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Aug 01,2020: Rumblings within the Congress came to the fore on Friday with a section of its leaders seeking introspection on the party’s electoral losses and a former Union minister asking whether the UPA was "sabotaged" from within ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Demands for an honest appraisal surfaced during a meeting of the Congress’s Rajya Sabha MPs on Thursday in the presence of party chief Sonia Gandhi. Some young MPs, including Rajeev Satav, the AICC in-charge for Gujarat, are learnt to have asked at the meeting for the link between the UPA government’s performance and the Congress’s electoral downfall to be reviewed.

 

Rajasthan Congress Chief whip Mahesh Joshi on Friday moved the Supreme Court against the High Court order asking the speaker to defer disqualification proceeding against sacked deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot and 18 MLAs, saying they indulged in the “grossest form of defection” by making “grave and sinister attempts” to topple the Ashok Gehlot government. The chief whip, who moved the top court two days after the assembly speaker CP Joshi filed the appeal against the July 24 Rajasthan High Court order, was very critical of the judicial intervention into the disqualification proceedings and said that the order was “ex-facie unconstitutional” and amounted to an intrusion into the domain of speaker’s power under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution.

BJP Rajasthan president Satish Poonia on Friday questioned why Congress MLAs were camping in Jaisalmer if they were united, hours after the ruling party in the state shifted its legislators to the border district from here fearing "horse-trading". "All are united, there is no danger, there is democracy. If everything is fine then why is fortification required and who is for sale? Make their names public. Disbelief in the fortification too! After Jaisalmer from Jaipur, Pakistan is ahead," Poonia said in a tweet. His statement came after the state Congress, fearing "horse-trading" ahead of the assembly session, shifted its MLAs to Jaisalmer from Jaipur where they had been staying at a hotel for over a fortnight.

Congress MLAs loyal to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot shifted from a Jaipur resort to Jaisalmer on Friday, prepared to spend at least the next fortnight holed up in a hotel there. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot boarded one of the five chartered flights to the city. But Gehlot indicated he will be back in Jaipur. He told reporters at the airport there will be no compromise with the government’s work as he and the ministers will remain in Jaipur. BJP has cried foul over the shifting of MLAs to Jaisalmer. State BJP chief Satish Poonia asked if the Gehlot government was stable enough, what was the need to rush the MLAs to Jaisalmer. The shifting of MLAs comes weeks ahead of the beginning of assembly session in Rajasthan from August 14. As Governor Kalraj Mishra finally agreed to convene the assembly session, Gehlot wasted no time in shifting around 100 MLAs to Jaisalmer to avoid any attempts of poaching.


courtesy:IndiaToday