It's time for Cong to decide on defiant MLAs

When it matters most, things that should have happened in its natural course sometimes take a detour as it happened in case of disqualification of Congress legislators who defied the whip and voted in favour of the no confidence motion in the Assembly on Sunday.

When any party issues a whip and if some of its members do not comply with it, they automatically come under Speaker’s scanner for disqualification. The party need not necessarily lodge an official complaint as issuing a whip is more powerful than the complaint which becomes redundant.

There could be some clause or some precedent somewhere which could be dug out saying that the legislature party should lodge a complaint and PRP did it and Congress is now baiting for time and weighing the pros and cons.

PRP, though it merged with Congress, still remains a separate entity due to some legal tangles and it had complained to the Speaker to disqualify the member who defied the whip.

When Uma Bharathi walked out of a meeting in full public glare, she was shunted out of the party, so were Karunaaran, Sharad Pawar, N D Tiwari and many others for various others but the basic point was defying party stand.

During voting on a no confidence motion, if Congress members stand up against the party in full glare of the media and general public, as the proceedings were live, and Congress wants to take its time to take a decision, well it must be in the interest of the party.

From Legislative Affairs Minister, to Chief Whip and State Congress President to Chief Minister and Delhi boss of State affairs were repeatedly saying that they will not go unpunished but without taking any action for nearly a week raises many doubts.

Whether it is a matter of convenience, conviction or precedence if the matter is hanging in the air for long, it will send wrong signals.

There can be delay from Speaker’s side but delay from the CLP has to come with explanations. Chief Minister after meeting Ahmed Patel and Gulam Nabi Azad in Delhi said that the CLP will send a complaint to the Speaker on the issue.

A national party can decide on such a serious issue much earlier, but in the bargain the big brains in Delhi must have been calculating the risk of going to by-poll in which almost all the rebels will be in the fray as YSR Congress candidates and they hail from all the three regions and the party leader Jagan Mohan Reddy, despite the CBI enquiry and court cases, is still continuing his mass contact programme in the form of Odarpu Yatra.

It is in this assembly only that the Speaker became the focal point and had to hold back resignations, first Kiran Kumar Reddy and now Nadendla Manohar for very unusual reasons and there were a spate of resignations as well.

Resignations, disqualifications and rejecting the resignations have put the Speaker very busy during the past two years. 

Deal or no deal before other political parties try to take advantage of the delay, Congress should be categorical on its stand.