A BJP MLA on Friday filed a petition in the Rajasthan High Court for quashing the merger of six BSP MLAs with the Congress, a move months back which helped the ruling party to retain majority in the assembly.
The petition by Madan Dilawar also challenges the "inaction" of the Speaker in not deciding on his plea seeking the disqualification of the Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs from the assembly.
The petition will be heard by a single-judge bench of the high court on Monday. Sandeep Yadav, Wajib Ali, Deepchand Kheria, Lakhan Meena, Jogendra Awana and Rajendra Gudha won the 2018 assembly elections on BSP tickets.
They applied for merger as a group with the Congress on September 16 last year. The Speaker passed an order two days later declaring that the six MLAs will be treated as an integral part of the Congress. The merger was a boost to the Ashok Gehlot-led government as the Congress tally increased to 107 in a House of 200.
The BJP MLA had then filed a petition to Speaker C P Joshi against the merger being not treated as defection, which would have led to the six MLAs' disqualification from the assembly.
Dilawar has now contrasted the treatment of his own petition with the action taken by the Speaker on a plea by Congress chief whip Mahesh Joshi, seeking the disqualification of 19 dissident MLAs led by Sachin Pilot.
He said while the Speaker issued disqualification notices to the 19 MLAs the same day he received the complaint from the Congress, no action has been taken in his case even after four months.
The BJP petition in the HC comes amid a legal battle over the Speaker's notices to the dissident MLAs, who moved the court earlier against the disqualification move. The HC on Friday has asked the Speaker not to take any action for now on his notices.
Speaker C P Joshi has already moved Supreme Court over a high court direction to him to defer action on the notices, as the tussle for power in Rajasthan continues.
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