The Harish Rawat Government has survived the BJP-triggered Budget division amidst pandemonium with the Opposition in league with dissenting minister Harak Singh Rawat and eight other disgruntled Congress MlAs remaining firm to put the government to test on the floor of the House.
However, before the House was adjourned the Speaker had the State Budget passed by voice vote. Consequently, the whip issued by the Chief Whip of the Congress to the MlAs to vote for the government during the voting did not apply to the nine Congress dissenters. This meant that the dissenters would not face the heat of the rules, said BJP spokesperson Munna Singh Chouhan while talking to 'The Pioneer' on Friday. However, it turned clear that the Harish Rawat Government was reduced to minority.
The situation remained tense throughout the day. Harak Singh Rawat joining hands with the Opposition openly made the crisis to the Government palpable.
After the House passed the respective departments' budgets, Harak Singh Rawat stormed into the well of the House, shouting full-throated slogans against the Harish Rawat government. He shouted slogans in favour of the BJP too. He screamed invectives against the Harish Rawat government, saying that it had let down the common man. BJP MlAs pitched in to support the disgruntled minister.
As the Opposition kept on insisting on voting on the Budget, the Treasury bench was found desperate to stave it off. Things turned grim for the Treasury bench as Harak Singh Rawat along with eight other Congress MlAs rushed into the well of the House and shouted slogans in unison against the State government. Enraged by the spectacle of the dissenters uniting with a vengeance, the PDF quota minister Mantri Prasad Naithani sprang up from his seat and tried to stop Harak Singh Rawat. Both the ministers were engaged in a brawl, raising further the heat of the House.
A grim-visaged Harish Rawat while on his way to the Speaker's chamber in the Vidhan Sabha appealed to his supporters to refrain from shouting slogans. Till the time of the report being filed, 26 BJP MlAs and nine Congress MlAs - Vijay Bahuguna, Harak Singh Rawat, Amrita Rawat, Shilarani Rawat, Kunwar Pranav Singh Champion, Dr Shailendra Mohan Singhal, Subodh Uniyal, Pradeep Batra and Umesh Sharma Kau - reached the Governor's House.
Meanwhile, things happening thick and fast, Union Cabinet minister Mahesh Sharma and senior party leader Kailash Vijay Vargiya have arrived in Dehradun. State BJP in-charge Shyam Jaju was already in Dehradun. He visited the Speaker's gallery while the House was debating the departments' budgets.