Cong moves SC, seeks access to rebels in B’luru Plea against Scindia’s RS nomination rejected
Rebels being hypnotised, says minister
New Delhi, March 17: The Madhya Pradesh Congress Legislature party (MPCLP) moved the Supreme Court Tuesday seeking direction to the Centre and the BJP-led Karnataka government to grant it access to communicate with its rebel MLAs allegedly kept at Bengaluru.
The development came on the heels of the apex court asking the Kamal Nath government in the state earlier in the day to respond by Wednesday to a plea by senior BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan seeking immediate floor test in the Assembly.
MPCLP, in its plea filed by Govind Singh, an MLA and chief whip of Congress legislature party, urged the apex court to declare as illegal the action of the Centre, Karnataka government and the MP BJP of illegally confining its MLAs in Bangaluru.
The plea, filed through senior lawyer Devdutt Kamat, said the trust vote would be a “sham” if 22 MLAs did not take part in it as almost 10 per cent of constituencies go unrepresented. The plea said, “In the instant case, as the 22 MLAs who represent 22 constituencies almost constituting 10 per cent of the total seats have purportedly resigned, the electorate of such constituencies are completely unrepresented.”
Bhopal, March 17: Amid a political tussle between the Congress and opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh, a state minister on Tuesday said the rebel MLAs of the ruling party being held in “captivity” by the BJP in Bengaluru have been “hypnotised” to make them read out ready-made scripts.
The statement of Public Relations Minister P.C. Sharma came hours after the 22 rebel MLAs of the Congress held a press conference in Bengaluru, where they have been holed up for at least 9 days, for the first time. These MLAs resigned on March 10, pushing the Kamal Nath government to the brink.
“These MLAs are under pressure. What is their objection to coming to Bhopal and holding a press conference here? They are under captivity in BJP-ruled Karnataka. They are hypnotised in captivity. After their return, they will come out of their hypnotised state,” alleged Mr Sharma. PTI
—
The Election Commission on Tuesday rejected charges of omitting a case registered against Jyotiraditya Scindia, who joined BJP recently, in his nomination for the Rajya Sabha and declared his papers valid.
A petition seeking rejection of Mr Scindia’s RS nomination for not mentioning the case in his papers was earlier filed by Congress veteran Digvijay Singh. The petition alleged that Mr Scindia had withheld information on a case lodged against him with the Economic Offence Wing (EoW) of Madhya Pradesh police, in his nomination paper.
It claimed that the case against Mr Scindia was registered by the EoW ahead of the submission of his nomination papers and yet, the nomination form had no mention of it.
Interestingly, a day after Mr Scindia joined BJP on March 11, the EoW declared to re-open a land grab case lodged against him in 2014 which was closed in 2018 owing to lack of evidence. The EC also rejected a petition filed by Congress against another RS candidate of BJP, Sumer Singh Solanki.
The petition said Mr Solanki was still in government service when he filed nomination.