Cong forged signatures of its absent MLAs, says BJP

Days after two BJP MLAs voted in favour of the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh, the saffron party on Sunday accused the ruling Congress of forging the signatures of 8 to 12 legislators during voting on a bill, although they were "not present" in the Assembly.

The BJP is now mulling approaching the state Governor with a request to verify the signatures of the Congress MLAs who participated in the voting on the Criminal Law (Madhya Pradesh Amendment) Bill.

On Wednesday, two BJP MLAs - Sharad Kol (Beohari) and Narayan Tripathi (Maihar) - backed the seven-month-old Nath government during voting on the Criminal Law (Madhya Pradesh Amendment) Bill, 2019, in the Assembly.

Talking to PTI on Sunday, Leader of the Opposition in MP Assembly Gopal Bhargava said, "We have come to know that some 8 to 12 Congress MLAs were not present when the Criminal Law (Madhya Pradesh Amendment) Bill was put to vote on Wednesday."

"Right now, we are studying the powers of the governor so that we can petition him with the request to verify the signatures of the Congress MLAs who participated in the voting," he said.

"We suspect that their (8 to 12 Congress legislators) signatures were forged," he said, adding that the voting procedure was not video-graphed.

"We have learnt that 8 to 12 Congress members were not present in the House. So how come they got 122 votes?" he asked.

In the 230-member Assembly, the ruling Congress has the support of 121 MLAs.

It has 114 MLAs - two short of the simple majority mark of 116 - and its government is being supported by four Independent legislators, two MLAs of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and one from the Samajwadi Party (SP).

"I had already spoken to MP Assembly Principal Secretary A P Singh over the phone and asked him to seal the entire voting procedure. I could not raise the issue in the House as it was adjourned after the voting," Bhargava said.

Congress MLA Sanjay Yadav, however, said that Bhargava was present in the House that time and he should have himself checked the voting procedure then.

"Nobody had stopped him then. Why is he complaining now?" he asked.

"In fact, their 50 members (legislators) were not present in the House," Yadav said and alleged that the BJP was in the habit of speaking lies.