Punjab CM Bhagwant Singh Mann to seek trust vote on Thursday to ‘prove Operation Lotus failure’
Amid claims that the BJP tried to poach AAP MLAs, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said a special Assembly session would be convened Thursday to table a confidence motion and prove “people’s trust in the government”.
Mann, who returned from Germany after a 10-day trip on Sunday midnight, made the announcement after meeting AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal on Monday afternoon. “We will bring the confidence motion just to prove legally that the people have all the trust in us. We will show how much people believe in us. Punjab MLAs are standing like a rock behind the people of the state. We all have dreamt of a resurrected Punjab and we will together realise that dream,” he said in a video.
Mann said the people had not given in to pressure from powerful and moneyed politicians, but elected the AAP government with a brute majority of 92 MLAs. “I want to show the confidence of people through this session and confidence motion,” he said.
The AAP has said that Operation Lotus was underway in the state in Mann’s absence. Finance Minister Harpal Cheema alleged that the BJP had unsuccessfully tried to poach AAP MLAs by offering money and instilling a fear of the ED and the CBI. He and other MLAs later submitted a complaint about the allegations to director-general of police Gaurav Yadav. A first information report was registered subsequently, but has not been made public yet.
Mann’s announcement of the special session came a few hours before former chief minister Amarinder Singh is set to join the BJP. A few Congress leaders are also expected to join the saffron party.
The confidence motion is reminiscent of a motion tabled by Kejriwal in the Delhi Assembly in August. The chief minister then said he was bringing the motion to prove that Operation Lotus had failed in Delhi. The AAP government won the motion.
