12 out of 44 Congress MLAs fail to reach for trust vote

Former chief minister Ashok Chavan and former minister in the MVA government was himself absent along with Vijay Wadettiwar.

Among the embarrassing lowlights for the Congress party on Monday was the failure of 12 of its 44 MLAs to reach the House for the trust vote.

Congress leaders Ashok Chavan and Nana Patole. HT File

Zeeshan Siddiqui and Dhiraj Deshmukh were photographed running to enter the House after the trust vote had begun and were disallowed. Pranati Shinde is out of the country while Jitesh Antapurkar was absent because on account of his wedding on Sunday.

Former chief minister Ashok Chavan and former minister in the MVA government was himself absent along with Vijay Wadettiwar. He later told the media that the Congress legislators were hanging around in the lobby and were caught unawares when the trust vote preceded the discussion in the House. Usually it’s the other way around. Kunal Patil, Raju Awale, Mohan Hambarde, Madhavrao Patil Jawalgaonkar, Shirish Choudhari and Vikram Sawant were the other absentees. “Usually, the discussion happens first, and then the voting... However, since the government had proved its majority with 164 votes, the numbers with the opposition did not matter,” said Chavan.

A Congress leader said that the MLAs absenteeism did not seem to be deliberate. “But if this was done on purpose, the party would have to take action.”