For the first time since Congress MLAs submitted their resignations in September last year, the list of the MLAs was revealed in a reply filed by Assembly Secretary Mahaveer Prasad Sharma in the Rajasthan High Court on Monday. As per the list, of the 81, 70 are from Congress while nine are independents and there is one from Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and one (expelled) from the BJP. While RLD's Subhash Garg is a minister in the Ashok Gehlot government, BJP’s Shobharani Kushwah was expelled from the party last year following her “rebellion” during the Rajya Sabha polls, when she cross-voted in favour of Congress candidate Pramod Tiwari. Angry over the Congress high command’s 'unilateral' decision to opt for a new chief minister of Rajasthan — said to have been Sachin Pilot — without consulting them, most Congress MLAs had skipped the CLP meet and submitted their resignations to Joshi on September 25, 2022. Gehlot, at that time, was in the running for the post of Congress national president. Then, there were some MLAs whose photocopies of resignations were received. These include Amit Chachan, Gopal Lal Meena, Chetan Singh Choudhary, Danish Abrar and Suresh Tak. “These five have been trying to appease both Chief minister Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot. They kept the original resignation letter in their pockets and handed over the photocopy,” said Deputy Leader of Opposition Rajendra Rathore, whose ongoing petition in the HC led to the Assembly Secretary making the revelations in his reply. The nine independent MLAs who submitted resignations are Alok Beniwal, Om Prakash Hudla, Khushveer Singh, Babulal Nagar, Mahadeo Singh, Raj Kumar Gaur, Laxman Meena, Sanyam Lodha and Suresh Tak, while four others, Kanti Prasad, Baljeet Yadav, Ramila Khadiya and Ramkesh did not resign. The 70 Congress MLAs who submitted resignations means 38 Congress MLAs did not submit their resignations. Those who did not submit resignations include some obvious names, including CM Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot, Speaker C P Joshi himself and Congress state president Govind Singh Dotasra. Others include heavyweights and former ministers Raghu Sharma and Harish Choudhary. Cabinet ministers Hemaram Choudhary, Vishvendra Singh, as well as ministers of state Murari Lal, Rajendra Singh Gudha, Zahida Khan and Brijendra Singh Ola did not resign either. Others include Pilot loyalists such as Ved Prakash Solanki, Mukesh Bhakar, Indraj Gurjar, Khiladi Lal Bairwa and Ramniwas Gawriya. MLAs Harish Meena, Divya Maderna, Girraj Singh, Deependra Singh, Rita Choudhary, Narendra Budaniya, Parasram Mordia, Bidhuri Rajendra Singh, Bharat Singh Kundanpur, Rakesh Pareek, Rajkumar Sharma, Ramnarain Meena, Suresh Modi and Shafia Zubair were also among those who did not resign. As per Sharma’s reply, while 24 MLAs withdrew their resignations on December 30, 39 MLAs withdrew them on December 31 and 16 MLAs on January 1. Sanyam Lodha withdrew his resignation on January 3 and Wajib Ali on January 10.
