AUTHOR: MANNAN KHALIL
PROLOGUE
This month witnessed a political drama staged in the arid deserts of the Congress ruled Rajasthan. It will be quite unscrupulous to sow the seeds of uncertainty by proclaiming the antagonist of this political script, since it seemed that the villain of the drama would be the BJP party that had pulled a coup on the Kamal Nath government in M.P; but the circumstances are such that they underline the importance to paint anyone with black. On one hand we have the young, dynamic Sachin Pilot and on the other, a generation apart, the senior Ashok Gehlot. Much harangue has been written and spoken subject to the unfair treatment of the Deputy Chief Minsiter (credited with the victory in the assembly election), after the Congress Working Committee chose the senior leader over him. Henceforth, the premise of this drama was laid and each incident of Pilot's alleged snub by Gehlot was just adding more suspense to the script. While the plot looks stirring, there is still a lot to consider as to what is there for Mr. Pilot at the end of this political loggerhead?
CHAPTER: THE TWISTS AND TURNS IN THE RAJASTHAN CRISIS
The emergence of purported evidence of horse-trading to engineer a coup in the Ashok Ghelot led Rajasthan Government can be traced back to 12 July 2020, when the then Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Sachin Pilot and 10 loyalist MLAs went to Delhi from Jaipur, claiming that they have support of a total of 30 MLAs and can topple the ruling government. Gehlot called senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Congress President Sonia Gandhi to handle the situation, slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party for trying to destabilize his government. BJP leaders claimed that it is the Congress party's internal matter and BJP is not responsible. Though, it is disputed whether Mr. Pilot has been acting in tandem or is in cahoots with the BJP, after the Congress turncoat, Jyotiraditya Scindia met him on 13 July at his Delhi residence and also when Rajasthan BJP president Satish Poonia also said that if Sachin Pilot wants to join BJP, we are always open for them. Sachin Pilot and his supporting MLAs were also invited to discuss the issue, but they turned down the offer to discuss the matter. He demanded the post of Chief Minister of Rajasthan, which he'd been denied after the 2018 Rajasthan Elections. On 14 July 2020, he was removed from the post of Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan and President of Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee along with his 2 MLAs from the post of ministers. As an effective counter measure, the Madhya Pradesh State police swiftly filed an FIR against an alleged middleman, BJP Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, and an MLA who has since been suspended from the Congress. The Rajasthan police have set out to procure voice samples of MLAs housed in Haryana who allegedly feature in audio clips that apparently incriminate them in the conspiracy. The Speaker issued notices to Mr. Pilot and 18 MLAs under the anti-defection law for defying the party whip and not attending legislature party meetings and in a subsequent plea by the Pilot camp, the Speaker has informed the High Court that the time to reply to the notice will be extended till July 21. The legal battle in a crucial sideshow began when on July 24; the Rajasthan HC barred the speaker from processing a Congress petition to disqualify 19 rebel Congress MLAs, favouring the Pilot camp. The speaker moved the top court complaining that the state court had no jurisdiction to ask him to defer the disqualification proceedings. In his petition, Joshi called the court order “illegal, perverse, and in derogation of the powers of the Speaker’ quoting the 1992 judgment of the Kihoto Hollohan case, in which the top court had held that judicial review should not cover any stage prior to the making of a decision by the speaker/chairman. The matter has been adjourned to Monday, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot indicated that he will seek a confidence vote when the assembly convenes next fortnight and claimed that the money offered to the MLAs to switch sides had increased sharply ahead of the session. The Gehlot-siding MLAs will move to a hotel in Jaisalmer. Now, the question that prompts frequently in everyone’s intellectual sphere is that if every democratically elected government can be overturned by discreetly giving out a handsome sum of money and selling out the idea of better self centred political opportunities to a few dissident lawmakers, then what is the logical reason to have an election in the first place?
CHAPTER: AAYA RAM, GAYA RAM : THE EVENT THAT CREATED THE ANTI DEFECTION LAW
The political history of India is a witness to the defection of various lawmakers from different mainstream parties to the all powerful Congress during the era of Indra Gandhi. One of them was the case of Gaya Ram. He was a member of the Indian National Congress and a member of the Haryana Legislative Assembly In 1967, he defected from parties thrice in a fortnight - first from the INC to Janata Dal, back to Congress and then within nine hours to Janata Party again. When hedecided to quit the United Front and join the Congress, then Congress leader Rao Birendra Singh brought him to press release in Chandigarh and proclaimed "Aaya Ram Gaya Ram". It became the butt of all political fibs and jokes and a subject of an array of caricature. It frequently transformed itself into an expression in politics of India means the frequent floor-crossing, turn coating, switching parties and political horse trading in the legislature by the elected politicians and political parties. This prompted a dire need for an anti defection law, which was subsequently incorporated as a part of the tenth schedule of the Indian constitution (Article 190 of the Indian Constitution deals in the anti-defection law) by the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1985. The anti-defection law, applicable to both Parliament and state assemblies, specifies the process for the Presiding Officer of the legislature to disqualify a legislators on grounds of defection based on a petition by any other member of the House. Defection is defined as either voluntarily giving up the membership of his party or disobeying (abstaining or voting against) the directives (political whips) of the party leadership on a vote in legislature. Legislators can change their party without the risk of disqualification to merge with or into another party provided that at least two-thirds of the legislators are in favour of the merger, then the members who decide to merge, or the ones who stay with the original party will not face disqualification. EPILOGUE
Recently, after Governor Kalraj Mishra approved the revised proposal of the state government to hold the Assembly session from August 14, media reports surfaced that the rebel leader Sachin Pilot and 18 other MLAs, who are camping at a hotel in Haryana, reportedly said that they will attend the session; lest they should face disqualification. Now the question that arises is that :- Will the political infighting within the Congress end with Pilot or as many fear that it is a start of a series desertion by leaders from various folds of the grand old party.
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