Guv to follow Constitution on calling Assembly session

Jaipur: Congress MLAs in the Ashok Gehlot camp on Friday ended a five-hour dharna at the Raj Bhawan after an assurance from the Governor Kalraj Mishra that he will go by the constitutional provisions on summoning an Assembly session.

Congress leader Randeep Surjewala said the Governor has assured that he will abide by Article 174 of the Constitution.

The Article deals with the Governor's role in summoning a session of the state Assembly.

The Governor, however, wanted the state government's clarification on some points before he makes the announcement.

Legal experts earlier said that the Governor has no option but to accept the recommendation of the Ashok Gehlot Cabinet and convene the Assembly session.

Later, a statement from the Raj Bhawan said Governor Kalraj Mishra, in a six-point questionnaire, has asked the government to respond as to why the Assembly session is being called.

"When the government has a majority, what is the justification for convening the session to prove it then?" he posed. The Governor also said that neither justification nor any agenda has been proposed to call the session on short notice.

Surjewala said that after the Cabinet gives the clarification to the queries, the Governor will be duty-bound to abide by Article 174. Cabinet meeting for the same was in session till the last report came in.

Earlier on Friday, Gehlot, along with the MLAs, went to the Raj Bhawan in the afternoon, complaining that the Governor was sitting on letter that the Cabinet had sent seeking an Assembly session on Monday. The chief minister held discussions with the Governor separately while the MLAs began a dharna in the lawn and asserted that it will be called off only when the date for beginning the session is announced. After nearly five hours, the dharna ended and the MLAs returned to the hotel. Gehlot had claimed that Governor Mishra was "under pressure from above" not to call an Assembly session. He said, "It is unusual that the ruling party wants a floor test and the opposition doesn't."

Governor Kalraj Mishra later hit back at Chief Minister and called the 'dharna' at Raj Bhawan a 'wrong trend'.

Meanwhile, the Rajasthan High Court on Friday ordered maintaining status quo on disqualification notices issued by the Assembly Speaker to 19 dissident Congress MLAs, including Sachin Pilot.

The notices were served by the Assembly Speaker to the MLAs on July 14 after the party complained to him that the legislators had defied a whip to attend two Congress Legislature Party meetings last week.

The Congress had sought action against Pilot and the other dissidents under paragraph 2 (1) (a) of the 10th Schedule of the Constitution.

The provision disqualifies MLAs if they "voluntarily" give up the membership of the party which they represent in the House.

The Pilot camp, however, argued that a party whip applies only when the assembly is in session.

The dissident MLAs challenged the notices through the writ petition which was taken up by the bench on Friday last week and arguments were held.

The court allowed the application moved by Pilot and 18 dissident Congress MLAs seeking impleadment of the Union of India as a party to the proceedings in the disqualification matter.