Ruckus in Houses even as hectic political developments brew outside

In Kolkata, Mamata Banerjee met K Chandrashekhar Rao to take forward their efforts at giving shape to a non-Congress and non-BJP federal front for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls

The impasse in Parliament over the no-confidence motion against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government continued on Monday, but hectic political developments were on outside.

The two Houses could not transact any business because of disruptions. The Lok Sabha could not take up the no-confidence motion. The government, with its majority in the House, it was willing to face the motion, and blamed the Opposition for disruptions.

Opposition parties blamed the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam for playing into the hands of the government by disrupting proceedings. There was also disagreement over whether normalcy was a prerequisite for a no-confidence motion. Former Lok Sabha secretary general P D T Acharya said order wasn’t necessary, and the motion can be taken up if 50 members stand up to support it.

In Kolkata, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee hosted her Telangana counterpart K Chandrashekhar Rao to take forward their efforts at giving shape to a non-Congress and non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) federal front for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Banerjee heads the Trinamool Congress and Rao is the chief of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti. After the two-hour meeting, Rao said the two leaders would now reach out to likeminded parties.

Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhara Rao and West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee speaking to media after their meeting on the proposed federal front in Kolkata on Monday

In New Delhi, former BJP ally Raju Shetti met Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and joined the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance. Shetti is a Lok Sabha member from Maharashtra. His party, the Shetkari Sanghathana, had quit the National Democratic Alliance in August 2017.

In Lucknow, the Adityanath government’s celebrations at completing a year in office were soured by criticism not just from rivals Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party, but also ally Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP). It said building temples would not solve people’s problems.

SBSP chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, a Cabinet minister in the Adityanath government, warned the BJP that his party’s four MLAs may not vote for BJP candidates in the coming Rajya Sabha polls if it did not shed its “big brother attitude”.

“If (BJP chief) Amit Shah does not talk to us, our four MLAs will boycott the Rajya Sabha elections (on March 23),” Rajbhar said. He refused to take part in the celebrations.

The SBSP has influence in the OBC Rajbhar community, and its chief has vented his anger on the heels of BJP’s shock defeats in Lok Sabha by-elections in Phulpur and Gorakhpur, where the SP and BSP had come together to form a Dalit-OBC alliance.

In Patna, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar said he had not given up the demand for grant of special status to Bihar, since he first raised the issue 13 years ago. Nitish has been under pressure from the Rashtriya Janata Dal on the issue ever since the Telugu Desam Party quit the BJP-led NDA.

On communal incidents in Bihar, Nitish said he would never side with divisive politics. On Sunday, Union minister and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan had said the BJP needed to take with it all sections of the society. Paswan met Nitish on Sunday evening.

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea seeking disqualification of the Bihar CM as an MLC on the ground that he had allegedly suppressed the fact from the poll panel that a murder case was pending against him. The court said a candidate is liable to disclose the pendency of a criminal case only after a court takes its cognisance.

The BJP accused the Congress government in Karnataka of dividing Hindus after the state Cabinet decided to recommend to the Centre grant of religious minority tag for the numerically strong Lingayat and Veerashaiva Lingayat community. Karnataka is slated for Assembly polls in April or May.

Lingayats and Veerashaivas, estimated to form 17 per cent of the state population, are considered the BJP’s traditional voter base. The move is seen as an attempt by CM Siddaramaiah to wean them towards the Congress.