Cong boycotts Question Hour to demand Jat's removal

JAIPUR: The controversy over Ajmer MP and water resources minister Sanwar Lal Jat continuing in the Vasundhara Raje-government's council of ministers affected the Assembly proceedings again on Tuesday.
The opposition Congress boycotted the Question Hour, objecting to Jat's presence in the House on the ground that he had resigned from the Assembly and taken oath as Lok Sabha member in May.
As Jat, who also holds the PHED portfolio, stood up to answer a question asked by BJP legislator Anita Singh, Congress legislator Vishvendra Singh objected. Singh, in fact, left the House stunned by asking Speaker Kailash Meghwal if a man could have two wives as per the law. "If not, then how could Jat be allowed to enjoy two posts, one in Lok Sabha and the other as a cabinet minister in the state," Singh questioned.
This led to an uproar, as the ruling BJP legislators hit out at the Congress benches for continuing to raise the issue over which the Speaker had already given a detailed ruling.
Leader of opposition Rameshwar Dudi and deputy whip Govind Singh Dotasra, however, reiterated that if the Raje government was keen to have Jat as a minister and give replies in the House, he (Jat) should be re-inducted in the council of ministers and administered the oath of secrecy again.
Parliamentary affairs minister Rajendra Rathore and chief whip Kalu Lal Gurjar said since the Speaker had already rejected the Congress's argument and they should let the Question Hour function uninterrupted.
"We cannot listen to strangers making replies to legislators' questions in the House. We are not bound to listen to a stranger," leader of opposition Dudi said, as he announced that the Congress is staging a walkout. Unlikely on Monday when they staged a symbolic walkout on the same issue prior to the budget presentation, the Congress legislators did not return to the seats on Tuesday until the Question Hour was over.
A day earlier, Speaker Meghwal categorically rejected the Congress's demand to declare the Raje government "unconstitutional" and quoted past examples when Congress MPs too were sworn in as ministers and chief ministers as per constitution's Article 164 (4). To Congress's logic that Jat was not the Assembly member when he was sworn in as minister on December 20, 2013, the Speaker had reasoned that the Election Commission had already declared Jat as elected from Nasirabad assembly constituency and had issued a notification to this effect on December 11, 2013. "Swearing in ministers before administering them oath as members of the Assembly is a democratic practice accepted the world over," Meghwal had said.