Nath ducks floor test again Rebel MLAs say they are not held captive; SC to hear Shivraj’s plea today

The high-octane political drama in Madhya Pradesh triggered by exit of veteran leader Jyotiraditya Scindia from Congress and subsequent resignation of 22 Congress MLAs from Assembly last fortnight, continued on Tuesday with Chief Minister Kamal Nath disregarding Governor Lalji Tandon’s fresh directive to face floor test in the House.

This was second time in the last 24 hours that Nath ignored the directive to face floor test to prove his government’s majority.

Nath, who shot off a letter to the Governor on Tuesday morning justifying his decision to skip trust vote again, took strong exception to Tandon’s warning to declare his government a minority if he ducked the floor test this time.

“It will be unconstitutional since it (terming that his government is in

minority) is baseless,”

Nath said.

Earlier on Monday, the Governor set fresh date of March 17 for the Kamal Nath government to face trust vote after his earlier directive to the Chief Minister to take floor test in the Assembly on Monday to prove his majority was given a go by.

The Governor while issuing fresh directive to hold floor test on Tuesday

had warned that it would be deemed that the Nath government has reduced to minority if the Chief Minister failed to face floor test on the day.

Replying to the governor’s fresh missive, Nath took refuge in coronavirus outbreak as well as the pending case in SC relating to the matter to skip the floor test. Besides, he reiterated his stand on the 16 rebel

Congress MLAs, lodged in a resort in Bengaluru in Karnatak since over a week, that he could not take floor test unless their ‘release’ were secured.

In a late evening development on Tuesday, Assembly Speaker N.P. Prajapati wrote a letter to the Governor seeking his intervention to secure release of the 16 rebel Congress MLAs.

Prajapati said he had received their resignation letters through other persons and had reason to doubt them as kin of one of them has moved the court seeking to rescue him.

The apex court while hearing the petition filed by former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan along with nine BJP legislators seeking floor test by Kamal Nath government within 48 hours, on Tuesday served notices to Nath and MP assembly secretariat to respond to it within 24 hours. The SC set March 18 the next date of hearing in the case.

In another development, 22 rebel Congress MLAs including six former ministers, holed up in a resort in Bengaluru, appeared in public for the first time on Tuesday to hold a press conference to deny the charges made by Nath that they were held ‘captive’ by the BJP.

The MLAs said they were given short shrift by Rahul Gandhi and Nath and hence decided to resign in protest.