Maharashtra Governor Koshyari backed Central rule to block illegal means

New Delhi: Maharashtra Governor B.S. Koshyari denied the Congress with 44 legislators an opportunity to stake claim to form the government because he felt it was almost impossible for the party, unless, of course, “illegal and unconstitutional means are adopted”. In a report to the President recommending the central rule, Koshyari said he didn’t want to see the ‘misadventure’ of a floor test. He took the decision on November 12 to prevent possibilities of horse-trading and corruption to garner support by parties. “Moreover, I am alive to the fact that in case of such a misadventure of having a floor test there are eminent possibilities of horse-trading, corruption and other illegal means being adopted by concerned persons to garner support, which in my view must be ruled out under any circumstances and at any cost. “In this regard, the developments on the eve of the aforesaid election of shifting prominent political leaders from one party to another can’t simply be overlooked,” the Governor’s report stated.

Koshyari said he had seen poaching of leaders before elections in Maharashtra where a number of the Congress and the NCP leaders moved to the BJP and the Shiv Sena and vice versa. The floor test was “neither feasible nor practical and would largely be an academic exercise as the ground situation revealed,” he said. The 13-page report also says the Governor rejected Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’s request for an additional one day to respond to the letter, asking him to inform in two days whether the BJP was willing to form a government. On Congress, the report said it had just 44 MLAs and it was ‘crystal clear’ it could never form a majority government. (IANS)

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