Days after two BJP MLAs voted in favor of the Congress to pass a bill in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly, the saffron party Sunday accused the Congress of forging the signatures of “8 to 12” of its own MLAs, alleging they were not present in the House during the proceedings.
“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. So how come they got 122 votes?,” leader of the Opposition in MP Assembly Gopal Bhargava told news agency PTI.
Responding to the allegation, Congress MLA Sanjay Yadav said Bhargava was present in the House during voting and should have himself checked the voting procedure.
The BJP is now mulling approaching the 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. “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,” Bhargava said.

“I had already spoken to MP Assembly Principal Secretary A P Singh 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 further said.
Two BJP MLAs- Narayan Tripathi and Sharad Kol- voted in favour of the state government to pass the bill — a day after the BJP toppled the Congress-JD(S) coalition in Karnataka. The BJP had then protested that the voting was rigged and that their MLAs’ signatures were forged. BJP MLA Narayan Tripathi had later accused the party of luring people with fanfare and then killing them politically.
The saffron party did not participate in voting but the amendment bill got 122 votes, two more than the number of legislators supporting the government. Hours earlier, in an indirect reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, Bhargav had claimed in the House that the Congress government would not last 24 hours once the BJP gets a signal from the top leadership. Despite the BJP’s loss of face, the party has not expelled the MLAs nor has the Congress accepted the duo into party fold formally.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Kamal Nath has said the BJP had been claiming for the last six months that his government would fall any day and challenged the Opposition to introduce a no-confidence motion.
In the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly, the ruling coalition has 120 MLAs, including 114 from the Congress, two from the BSP and one from the SP, apart from four Independents. The BJP has 108 MLAs.