Rajya Sabha polls: In Rajasthan, BJP suspends MLA for cross-voting, issues notice

And now, her cross voting is also being linked to her husband’s imprisonment, while she herself hasn’t offered any explanations yet.

A second term MLA, Kushwah is the wife of jailed former MLA B L Kushwah. In December 2016, the then Rajasthan Assembly Speaker Kailash Meghwal had terminated the Assembly membership of B L Kushwah, who was with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) then, after he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for ‘honour’ killing.

Kushwah was disqualified under Article 191 of the Indian Constitution, which is concerned with the disqualification of membership of the Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council of a state, read with section 8 (Disqualification on conviction for certain offences) of The Representation of The People Act, 1951.

पार्टी विप का उल्लंघन करने पर केंद्रीय अनुशासन समिति ने विधायक श्रीमती शोभा रानी कुशवाहा को पार्टी की प्राथमिक सदस्यता तथा समस्त अन्य जिम्मेदारियों एवं दायित्यों से किया निलंबित। pic.twitter.com/lEnku1qJLx

— BJP Rajasthan (@BJP4Rajasthan) June 11, 2022

The BSP MLA from Dholpur was sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court in a 2012 “honour killing” case. One Satyendra Singh of Uttar Pradesh, alleged to be a contract killer for Kushwah, was also handed down the life term for the murder of one Naresh Kushwaha in Dholpur district. As per police, B L Kushwah had accused Naresh of being in a relationship with his sister.

Additional District Judge Salim Badar had convicted Kushwah and Satyendra under IPC section 302 (murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) while also imposing a fine of Rs 10,000 on Kushwah.

In the subsequent Dholpur Assembly bypoll in early 2017, BJP had fielded Kushwah’s wife Shobharani Kushwah, who went on to win the bypoll. Then in 2018, she was again fielded by the BJP from the same seat during the state Assembly elections, and went on to win once again.

Reacting to the cross voting, Leader of Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria said, “There will be action. A notice will reach her for violating the whip. No one can deny that the whip has been violated since it is on authorised documents.”

Later in the day, Kataria suspended her from the party’s primary membership and issued a notice to her seeking a response within seven days, asking why she shouldn’t be expelled from the party for indiscipline. Kataria said that if she doesn’t respond within seven days, the party will be free to take action against her.

Kushwah could not be reached for comments and had switched off both her phone numbers.