The scenario was quite similar after November 2008 assembly elections when Congress had won 96 seats but was short by 4 seats to reach the midway mark of 100.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati has offered support to Congress in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. It is a case of Mayawati forgetting her troubled past with Congress in Rajasthan a decade ago.
The scenario was quite similar after November 2008 assembly elections when Congress had won 96 seats but was short by 4 seats to reach the midway mark of 100. BSP had won 6 seats in Rajasthan and the BSP legislators offered support to Congress. What helped matters was that some of them who won from BSP were earlier associated with the Congress. In return, each one of them got plum posts.
Muralilal Meena, Rajkumar Sharma and Rajendra Singh Gudha went on to become minister of state while Ramkesh Meena, Ramesh Meena and Giriraj Singh Malinga got posts of parliamentary secretaries (with state minister status) in the Ashok Gehlot Government.
But it did not take long for tables to turn on BSP as within a few months, the BSP MLAs joined Congress in April 2009. This put Congress’s individual tally at 102. And also put an end to the pressure faced by the Ashok Gehlot government due to outside support. Deependra Singh Shekhawat who was then the speaker; and elected from Sri Madhopur this time; merged the half a dozen BSP MLAs into Congress.
BSP engaged in a long drawn legal battle over the issue but did not manage to win. It filed a case in Rajasthan High Court challenging the merger of six BSP MLAs with the Congress and sought that it be declared illegal and unconstitutional. But what helped the legislators get the better of defection laws was that - as all 6 elected BSP legislators had crossed over - they were considered to be 100% of their party strength. All six have won this time too albeit - four on Congress ticket, one as independent and just one on a BSP ticket. There is an old saying about elephant’s memory, but apparently larger political gains that BSP sees through offering an alliance to Congress compel it to let bygones be bygones.
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