New Delhi: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath has urged Governor Lalji Tandon to speak to Union Home Minister Amit Shah to ensure the release of 19 Congress MLAs held in “captivity” by the BJP in Bengaluru.
In a letter to Tandon, Nath said he was ready for a floor test in the upcoming Legislative Assembly session starting 16 March.
“As a responsible leader of the Indian National Congress, I invite and would welcome a Floor Test of my Government in the forthcoming session of the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly already notified from 16th March 2020, on a date fixed by the Speaker. This is the minimum a Constitutional Authority can offer to address the ongoing turmoil,” he said in the letter to the governor.
The letter dated 13 March with a subject line, ‘Horse-Trading of MLAs by the Bharatiya Janata Party’, details the account that led to the alleged captivity of Congress MLAs.
“I’m constrained to point out the immoral, unethical and illegal acts of Bharatiya Janata Party in Madhya Pradesh,” Nath wrote, adding, “In the first attempt, on 3rd/4th of March 2020, the midnight drama leading to whisking to MLAs to Bengaluru is in the public domain. The leaders of the Congress party foiled the attempt of BJP to keep in captivity the MLAs by using both allurement and focus.(sic)”
Urging Tandon to speak to Amit Shah, Nath wrote, “We request Your Excellency may use your good office as Constitutional head of the State with the Hon’ble Union Home Minister to ensure release of MLAs held in captivity in Bengaluru.”
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Seeks probe into MLAs’ resignations
Nath’s letter gives a detailed account of what transpired after the MLAs submitted their resignation to the Speaker, according to the Congress. As many as 19 MLAs, including six cabinet ministers, are in a resort in Bengaluru and are said to be “incommunicado”.
The letter says the resignations of the Congress MLAs were handed to the Speaker by senior leaders of the BJP and not the legislators themselves on 10 March.
The chief minister also said two cabinet ministers of the Madhya Pradesh government, Jitu patwari and Lakhan Singh Yadav, along with MLA Manoj Choudhary’s father Narayan Singh Choudhary, had gone to meet them but were “manhandled by BJP goons as well as Karnataka state police and were illegally detained”.
Nath demanded an “enquiry and investigation on the resignation letters submitted by the BJP”.