Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra on Wednesday once again returned to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot the third proposal send by the ruling Congress government to convene the Assembly session from July 31.
The Governor has not given the approval for the session yet, according to a report in news agency ANI.
After the third proposal was returned, Gehlot went to meet the Governor at Raj Bhawan.
“I am going to meet him to know what he wants,” the CM was quoted as saying by PTI earlier.
Meanwhile, amid the standoff with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Governor Kalraj Mishra cancelled the Independence Day ‘At Home’ event reportedly due to the Coronavirus situation in Rajasthan.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Congress government had sent a fresh proposal to the Governor seeking to summon a special Assembly session from Friday.
The proposal reportedly included the state government’s reply on the three conditions to be met to convene the session.
The development comes after Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot chaired a cabinet meeting in Jaipur day after Governor Mishra sent back his request, with queries, for an assembly session. The meeting went on for over two hours.
The Governor has twice returned the state government’s proposal to convene a special Assembly session to discuss the prevailing situation in the state.
Last Friday, Governor Kalraj Mishra had refused to accede to Ashok Gehlot’s call for an Assembly session to prove his government’s majority, and sought a reply on six points from the state government, including about the reason to call a session of the Assembly for a floor test.
Following this, the Rajasthan chief minister, in a late-night meeting on Friday, discussed the six points raised by the Governor for calling an assembly session.
Then, Gehlot submitted a fresh proposal on Sunday and listed Coronavirus and economy as the agenda for the special session.
However, the Raj Bhawan on Monday, returned the files related to the convening of the Assembly session to the Parliamentary Affairs Department of the state and sought some additional details from the Congress government on how it plans to conduct the session amidst the pandemic.
Following this, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot told reporters that he spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi informing him about the Governor’s “behaviour”.
Shortly after, the Governor issued a statement allowing the state government to convene a special Assembly session but with conditions.
In a statement, the Rajasthan Raj Bhawan said that “Not convening the Assembly was never the intention” and raised three questions for the Ashok Gehlot government on its proposal for convening the Assembly session.
The Governor questioned if the Chief Minister wanted to bring a trust vote or not.
Further stating that it would be difficult to call all the MLAs for the Assembly session in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, the Governor asked, “Can you consider giving a 21-day notice over the convening of Assembly session?”
The Rajasthan Governor finally questioned how social distancing would be maintained during the Assembly session.
The Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government, which is facing a political crisis after rebellion by 19 dissident Congress MLAs, including rebel party leader Sachin Pilot, wants to hold the assembly session to prove its majority.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had last week alleged that the Governor was not giving directions to call the Assembly session because he was “under pressure from the top” to stall any test of strength.
Currently, the Congress has a narrow lead over the opposition and is only one past the majority mark of 101 in the 200-member Rajasthan assembly. Team Pilot claims the support of 30 MLAs; however, there is evidence of only 19. The BJP has 72. Including smaller parties and independent members, the opposition has 97 at the moment.
After Sachin Pilot and the rebel MLAs gave the second CLP meeting a miss on July 14, the Congress announced the removal of Pilot as the Deputy Chief Minister as well as the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief.
Two other ministers, Vishvender Singh and Ramesh Meena, who joined him in his revolt, were also dropped from the Ashok Gehlot cabinet.
The crisis exploded following the night of July 10 when the Rajasthan Police sent a notice to Pilot, asking him to record his statement over an alleged attempt to bring down the government.
On July 12, the sulking leader declared open rebellion against his party by claiming that he has the support of 30 MLAs.