Congress in Maharashtra on Thursday alleged that the state BJP government has “no constitutional legitimacy” and said that it is examining legal options after the controversial trust vote in the Assembly.
The Devendra Fadnavis government had won a contentious trust vote in the Maharashtra Assembly amid dramatic protests by the Opposition, which deprecated passage of the confidence motion by voice vote and claimed it had failed to prove majority.
The Congress will soon announce a definite course of action to seek justice and to ensure that the provisions of the Constitution are upheld, state party unit president Manikrao Thakre said.
“The government has no constitutional legitimacy. Since the process of voice vote was not completed, the Governor should ask the BJP to prove its majority in the House,” Congress spokesman Balchandra Mungekar said.
He said the Congress had sought an appointment with the Governor yesterday immediately after the trust vote and they are hopeful that they would be able to meet him.
The Governor should ask the BJP, which has only 121 MLAs in the 288-member House, to prove its majority as the number for simple majority is 145, he said.
The Speaker had not completed the process of voice vote and did not ask who all were against the motion of vote of confidence, Mungekar alleged.
“Since the BJP government is in minority, how many numbers were in support and who were against has not been registered in the proceedings,” he claimed.
Mungekar rejected the government’s charge that the division of vote was not sought in time.
“When the process itself was not completed, how can they say that the division was not asked in time? Those who want a poll will make the demand only when the Speaker asks who are against the motion,” he said.
He claimed BJP did not want to expose the NCP during the trust vote.
“The BJP is ashamed to go public that it took NCP’s support to survive the motion while NCP is ashamed to make its support public,” Mungekar alleged.
Senior Congress leader Ashok Chavan said the Speaker should have allowed division of vote during the trust motion. “It is a normal process,” he added.
