Odisha Assembly Speaker Surma Padhi has rejected the petitions of opposition parties BJD and Congress. In these petitions, a demand was made to disqualify 11 MLAs for cross-voting during the Rajya Sabha elections held on March 16. BJD had filed a petition against 8 of its MLAs, while Congress had sought disqualification against 3 of its MLAs.
Referring to BJD’s petitions, the Odisha Assembly Secretariat in its June 19 notification said, “This petition is short, vague, without solid basis and does not meet the legal requirements, hence it cannot be accepted for consideration on merits.”
Mention of serious mistakes in the petition
According to the notification, this petition contains serious errors or has been presented with willful or flagrant ignorance of the legal provisions and does not deserve consideration.
After investigation, the Speaker found that the evidence presented against the MLAs did not establish voluntary resignation or defection under Paragraph 2(1)(a) of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution. Later, the Assembly Speaker told reporters that the petitions were incomplete and lacked evidence. He said, this decision has been taken as per the law.
Which MLAs demanded termination of membership?
BJD had demanded termination of membership of eight MLAs. These include Chakramani Kanhar from Baliguda, Devi Ranjan Tripathi from Banki, Arvind Mahapatra from Patkura, Sanatan Mahakud from Champua, Subhasini Jena from Basta, Nab Kishore Malik from Jaydev and Souvik Biswal from Cuttack-Chaudwar. Congress had also filed a petition demanding disqualification of its MLAs – Sophia Firdous from Barabati-Cuttack, Ramesh Jena from Sanakhemundi and Dashrath Gamang from Mohana.
This decision of the Speaker has come a few months after the Rajya Sabha elections, when there were allegations of cross-voting within the BJD. This sparked a political debate among the MLAs regarding party discipline and loyalty.
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