Jharkhand Assembly Speaker Dinesh Oraon has sent notice to leaders of Jharkhand Vikas Morcha to present their point in MlAs’ defection case tentatively on July 3. The notice has been sent in the light of the response given by the six former party members who had parted their ways and joined the BJP few months after the Government formation.
“The MlAs have filed their final replies through their lawyers before the Assembly Secretariat. In the light of the applications received from Babulal Marandi and Pradeep Yadav, we have sent notice to them for filing their response possibly on July 3,” said the Speaker on Monday.
Following the cross over, the JVM had approached the Speaker seeking disqualification of the MlAs from the House under the Anti-defection law in place. However, the dissidents have been maintaining that their decision did not attract the provisions of the Act since their collective number was more than 2/3rd of the total strength of the party in the Assembly.
The MlAs have filed their reply to the notices issued to them after several postponements and now response of the JVM would decide the fate of the contention. Two of the defecting MlAs, namely Amar Kumar Bauri and Randheer Singh, were sworn in as ministers in the BJP-led Government.
“The JVM would present their point of view and then if need be further hearing would be conducted to settle the issue,” added the Speaker. The defection had provided the BJP much needed majority in the House of 81 on its own and had negated its dependency on pre-poll ally AJSU Party. Nevertheless, the JVM tried to make it big for the party by organising ‘Nyay Yatra’ across the State and toiled hard to “expose the unethical deed committed by the BJP”.
When contacted, JVM general secretary Pradeep Yadav said that proper reply would be filed before the Speaker.