Jharkhand assembly Speaker Rabindranath Mahto on Thursday advised the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to name a new leader of Opposition (LoP) saying that he would soon decide on the disqualification petition against Babulal Marandi, who has been nominated for the post.
The development comes weeks ahead of the budget session of the Jharkhand assembly, which is set to begin on February 27. The BJP has named Marandi as its legislature party leader but the Speaker is yet to give LoP status to him due to an anti-defection petition against him pending at the Speaker’s tribunal. Mahto had ended hearings in the case on August 30 and reserved his order.
The anti-defection charges were filed against Marandi in December 2020 after he merged his Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) or JVM (P) with the saffron party in February that year in the presence of Union home minister Amit Shah and was unanimously elected the leader of the BJP legislature party.
The Speaker refused to give the status of LoP to Marandi and subsequently initiated an anti-defection proceedings suo motu. However. The move was challenged by Marandi in HC, arguing that Speaker can’t take cognisance on matter of anti-defection.
In the meanwhile, complaints were filed by former CPI(ML) legislator Rajkumar Yadav, JMM legislator Bhushan Tirkey, Congress legislator Dipika Pandey and former JVM(P) legislator Pradeep Yadav and Bandhu Tirkey. Even before the high court could decide on Marandi’s petition, the Speaker withdrew the proceedings under his suo motu cognisance and started proceedings as per the complaints of the MLAs.
“Soon after I reserved the order, they (BJP) challenged the proceedings in Speaker’s tribunal in high court. Although, I did not issue any stay order, I was waiting for the outcome as I didn’t want the two independent bodies to be at loggerheads. Now that the high court has given its verdict and refused to intervene, I would take a call soon and issue my order on the matter,” Mahto told HT on Thursday.
He said has been requesting the BJP to choose another legislator for the post as several important government decisions are pending due to the stalemate.
“I would have straightaway given LoP status to any other legislator as the BJP is the second largest party in assembly. Some important decisions like appointment of information commissioners and Lokayukta are pending for long as the LoP is on the selection panel. Last year, even court had inquired about the Lokayukta appointment from the government. I even wrote to the BJP president suggesting to give an alternate name so that such decision could be processed but they did not. They can do it even now,” said the Speaker.
Marandi had merged JVM (P) with the BJP after suspending his two party legislators, Pradeep Yadav and Bandhu Tirkey, who later merged their faction with the Congress.
After the complaints against Marandi, the BJP too filed anti-defection complaints seeking disqualification of Yadav and Tirkey. Tirkey was, however, disqualified in April this year after being sentenced to three years in jail by a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on corruption charges. The charges against Yadav is still being heard in the Speaker’s tribunal.
The BJP leadership, which has remained defiant, has accused the Speaker of working under the influence of the government and his party, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).
Marandi said the Speaker was free to take any decision but the stand of the BJP has been clear from day one that the case was deliberately made out to be a case of 10th Schedule when the Election Commission of India (ECI) had approved the merger. The 10th Schedule of the Indian Constitution deals with the anti-defection law.
“The ECI has approved the merger of the party and the commission had informed the Speaker about it. Accordingly, for the Rajya Sabha election, the assembly secretariat put out the list of voters and I was included as a BJP voter. But deliberately, the Speaker heard this matter under 10th Schedule,” said Marandi.
“His (Speaker’s) intention was mala fide from the beginning. He took suo motu cognisance in the matter. When I challenged it in the court, suddenly five persons from the ruling parties filed petition against me in the tribunal and the Speaker dropped the cognisance he took. I had challenged the proceedings in high court but the court refused to intervene. Let Speaker take his decision. We will act accordingly,” he added.
