Speaker serves notice under anti-defection act to 4 MLAs

Jharkhand Assembly Speaker Shashank Sekhar Bhokta today served notices to four MLAs of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) under Anti-Defection Law and barred them from taking part in any division of votes in the House.
The speaker informed this to the House after JVM Legislature Party leader Pradip Yadav gave a letter to him seeking disqualification of the four's membership under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution as newspaper reports said the four joining the BJP recently.
Party chief Babulal Marandi also sent a separate letter to the speaker seeking to disqualify Nirbhay Kumar Sahabadi (Giridih constituency), Jai Prakash Singh Bhokta (Semeria), Chandrika Mahata (Jamua) and Samresh Singh (Bokaro), Bhokta said.

Asking the four legislators to reply by 2 PM of August 4, the Speaker said they could attend the Assembly proceedings but would not have the right to vote in case there was any division of votes.
Sahabadi had yesterday said he and the three MLAs had announced to join the BJP in the presence of its president Amit Shah in Delhi and that three more were in the pipeline.
He had also alleged that JVM president Babulal Marandi was not taking everyone into confidence in decision making.