After Delhi and Jharkhand, Punjab will be the third non-BJP ruled state where a trust vote will be held this month amidst allegations of poaching attempts by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to topple the government under “Operation Lotus”. While Aam Aadmi party is heading the governments in Delhi and Punjab, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal coalition is running Government in Jharkhand.
A day after Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday alleged that some AAP MLAs were offered money and even threatened with CBI or ED probes to join the saffron party, the state Council of Ministers on Tuesday approved summoning of a special one-day session of Punjab Vidhan Sabha on September 22 (Thursday) to move confidence motion in the favour of State Government.
Later, the Punjab Governor has also summoned “the Sixteenth Punjab Vidhan Sabha to meet for its Third (Special) Session on Thursday, 22nd September, 2022 at 11 am in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha Hall, Vidhan Bhavan, Chandigarh”.
The one-day special session is expected to see a debate on the issue of poaching attempts by the BJP. It is expected that the MLAs, who have been “approached” by the BJP, will also recount how the “callers” had approached them and what offers or threats they were given to join the saffron party.
As per AAP’s allegations, its 11 MLAs — Dinesh Chadha, Raman Arora, Budh Ram, Kulwant Pandori, Narinder Kaur Bharaj, Rajnish Dahiya, Sheetal Angural, Labh Singh Ugoke, Baljinder Kaur, Rupinder Singh Happy, and Manjit Singh Bilaspur — were approached by the BJP.
On September 1, the Delhi Assembly had passed the confidence motion moved by AAP national convener and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal with as many as 58 MLAs voting in support of the motion. AAP has 62 MLAs in the 70-member Delhi assembly, while remaining eight hails from the BJP.
Later on September 5, Jharkhand Assembly also passed a similar confidence motion was tabled by Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) president and Chief Minister Hemant Soren and passed with the support of 48 legislators. In the 81-member Assembly, the JMM-led mahagathbandhan enjoys the support of 51 legislators, with the support of Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Nationalist Congress Party, and Communist Party of India (M-L). BJP has 26 MLAs.
All the three governments had made similar allegations against the saffron party — making attempts to destabilize the democratically elected governments in the non-BJP ruled states by “misusing” central probe agencies or by wooing MLAs by offering huge sums of money as part of its ‘Operation Lotus’.
In Punjab, the senior most Cabinet Minister Harpal Singh Cheema was the first one to make the shocking revelations against BJP. He alleged that BJP was issuing CBI or ED threats and offering Rs 25 crores to 11 of its MLAs to join the saffron party. He cited the examples of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Delhi, and Rajasthan, where BJP had made similar attempts to destabilize the respective governments.
Traditionally, it is the Opposition that demand from the ruling party to prove their majority in the House. However, in all the three non-BJP ruled states of Jharkhand, Delhi, and now Punjab, no such demand was made by the Opposition as the governments in these states enjoy full majority.
In Punjab, AAP registered a historic victory in February assembly elections winning record 92 seats out of total 117.
Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president and MLA Amarinder Singh Raja Warring questioned the AAP led State Government’s move to bring in the “vote of confidence” in a special Vidhan Sabha session on September 22 when nobody had challenged it about having lost the numerical majority of legislators.
“Enacting a theatrical ‘confidence show’, you cannot win the confidence of people that you have already lost by your various acts of omission and commission,” said Warring, while adding that it was not the vote of confidence, “but the vote of low confidence”.
“Normally, a government brings in a vote of confidence when its majority is questioned by the opposition that it has lost the confidence of the House,” he pointed out, adding, “but in this case, the Government is trying to bring in vote of confidence in itself, apparently for the reason that it has completely lost confidence in itself”.
“This is actually a vote of low confidence as the government has completely lost its own confidence and that of the people of Punjab owing to a series of setbacks like investigations into the liquor scams in Delhi and Punjab, the embarrassment caused by the false claims over the BMW investment and other multiple failures,” he observed.
Warring said, given the numerical advantage the AAP government has in Vidhan Sabha, it is a foregone conclusion that it will win the confidence of the House. “But how will you win the confidence of people that you have already lost and shattered?” he asked the AAP leadership, while adding, “statistical numbers are really not enough to satisfy the expectations of the masses which you have badly belied and betrayed”.