Simaria MLA Ganesh Ganjhu completed his arguments before the tribunal of Assembly Speaker Dinesh Oraon, taking the number of legislators to do so to three out of total six in question into the JVM MLAs anti-defection case.

Arguing on the behalf of the legislator senior advocate Jai Prakash Jha on Wednesday pressed for dismissal of the case filed by the JVM complaining about the defection taken place violating the 10th schedule of the Constitution.   

“The advocate argued that the case should not be discussed at all since as per the provisions of the 10th schedule the desired number for a merger is two-third of the strength of the party in the House. In this case it is six out of eight seats the JVM had secured during the last Assembly elections. He also said that there was no precedence in his knowledge that membership of any member is taken away even after fulfilling the criteria,” said a senior Assembly official present during the hearing taken place at the Assembly premise.

The advocate instead termed the matter a perfect case of merger of a party into another party while rejecting the claims of the JVM which has been stating that six of the legislators elected on its tickets during the 2014 polls but went on shifting their loyalties to the BJP that came to power early in 2015 against the provisions into the law.

The tribunal has already heard the part of the JVM and now three MLAs- Amar Kumar Bauri, Navin Jaiswal and Ganesh Ganjhu would be listening to the remaining members namely Alok Chaurasia, Janki Prasad Yadav and Randhir Singh in the due course.

“Arguments from three of them have been concluded and three more are remaining. All of them are presenting similar arguments claiming their act was a merger and legitimate in the eyes of the 10th schedule. They said that the merger as per the law is all about legislative party representing the MLAs in the Assembly and it is nothing to do with the party as a whole,” said JVM lawyer RN Sahay.

The respondents have been pressing that the JVM at that time and even before was passing through turbulences. Even during the third Vidhan Sabha, seven of their sitting MLAs had quit the party while one got expelled from the House. The party was being run through dictatorship thus the merger was done as per the wishes of the people and party workers.

The JVM advocate on his part had quoted judgments of the Supreme Court, High Courts, and Parliament and Assemblies of Bihar and Assam to establish that it was not a merger but defection. He had already submitted before the court citing constitution of the JVM that neither the meeting of the party’s central working committee was called on the claimed date, nor any resolution of merging the party into the BJP was passed with two-third majority, nor it was on the agenda of the meeting.