The six BSP MLAs from Rajasthan who merged with the Congress government in the state, giving a boost to Ashok Gehlot’s numbers, will be able to take part in the trust vote as the Supreme Court refused to stall the merger on Thursday, 13 August.
The court said that it won’t interfere with the proceedings in the Rajasthan High Court that is already hearing the matter.
The former BSP legislators have already announced allegience to the Gehlot government and have said that they will vote for him in the trust vote.
Ten months ago, all the six MLAs – whose status is now disputed – had announced their merger with the ruling Congress, boosting its numbers in the Assembly.
The BSP and the BJP leaders had approached the division bench last week, challenging the order of a single-judge bench that refused to put a stay on the functioning of the six leaders as Congress legislators.
The Rajasthan High Court on 6 August spelt relief for the Ashok Gehlot government in the case challenging the merger.
Disposing of a petition filed by BSP national Secretary Satish Mishra and Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Madan Dilawar, a division bench of Chief Justice Inderjit Mahanti and Justice Prakash Gupta said that notice, issued earlier by a single-judge bench, should be delivered to all six former BSP MLAs by 8 August.
Meanwhile, Gehlot on Thursday emphasised on "the spirit of forgive and forget and move forward", days after the Pilot camp negotiated a truce with the Congress leadership in Delhi.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)