Maharashtra government to revoke suspension of five Congress MLAs

Even though the Devendra Fadnavis government has announced its decision of revoking suspension of five Congress MLAs involved in allegedly manhandling governor C Vidyasagar Rao during the last day of the special session for the passage of trust vote, a section of the Fadnavis cabinet is against it.

The Congress MLAs — Abdul Sattar, Jaikumar Gore, Mar Kale, Virendra Jagtap and Rahul Bondre — were suspended for allegedly manhandling Rao on November 13 for proving the trust vote of the Fadnavis government.

Despite the fact that the Congress-NCP government had gone ahead with the suspension of many Opposition members during its 15-year tenure between 1999 and 2014, the BJP-Sena government has decided not to be vindictive.

One of the senior ministers told dna that even though the decision is not unanimous, good sense has prevailed and the government has decided not to be vindictive. He recalled that during the 15-year rule of the Democratic Front government, minister for parliamentary affiars Harshawardhan Patil was referred to by the Opposition as the minister for suspensions.

Party sources said that senior ministers like Eknath Khadse were in favour of continuing the suspension of Congress MLAs and this was echoed by a few others. But parliamentary affairs minister Girish Bapat managed to convince Fadnavis against being vindictive.

Sources informed dna that the government has decided to make this an exception for not being vindictive since it has to run the business in both the Houses of the state assembly.