Over a week after the Congress formally sought the disqualification of Kuldeep Bishnoi from the Lok Sabha, Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has forwarded the party’s petition to the suspended party member for his comments.The petition has been filed by Congress member Avtar Singh Bhadana from Faridabad. The Congress had placed Bishnoi, the Bhiwani MP and son of former chief minister Bhajan Lal, under suspension after he started criticising party chief Sonia Gandhi and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Bhadana told The Indian Express on Friday that he decided to petition the Speaker for Bishnoi’s disqualification under the Tenth Schedule for having “voluntarily” given up his Congress membership after he floated a regional outfit, the Haryana Janhit Congress (BL), at a public meeting in Rohtak on December 2. Simultaneously, the Congress is also pursuing disqualification proceedings against Bhajan Lal and his key supporters Dharmpal Singh Malik and Rakesh Kamboj in the Haryana Assembly.Sources said that once Bishnoi’s response is received, the Speaker would refer the matter to the Privileges Committee headed by senior Congress member Kishore Chandra Deo for a preliminary examination of facts. The Congress has also turned the heat on suspended Rajya Sabha members Natwar Singh (Rajasthan) and Maulana Obaidullah Khan Azmi (Madhya Pradesh). The sources said the complaints against them, filed by Congress chief whip V Narayanaswamy, have been referred to the Previleges Commttee headed by Upper House Deputy Chairman K Rahman Khan, for a preliminary examination. When reached for comments, Azmi said he had indeed supported the SP in the UP Assembly elections after the Congress failed to heed his advice that it work out a seat adjustment with Mulayam to defeat the BSP. Regarding the Congress complaint, he said, “Ironically they are not expelling me for anti-party activities, and are taking resort to action inside the House for what I have done outside. I have neither criticised the party leadership nor its policies, nor violated any party whip on the floor of the House.”Till recently, the fate of disqualification petitions had been determined by the conduct and actions of members inside the House. However, a path-breaking decision of the Lok Sabha Speaker— disqualifying three BSP members— has completely altered the situation. The Speaker relied on the Supreme Court decision in the Balakrishna versus George Fernandes case. The SC had ruled that “newspaper reports may be taken into account with other evidence.”
