Battlefield Rajasthan: Congress meeting underway at Jaipur hotel, HC continues hearing BJP's plea

Jaipur: A meeting of the Rajasthan Congress Legislature Party has started at a hotel on the outskirts of Jaipur where party legislators and supporters are holed up, sources said.

It was to start around 10 am but got delayed by three hours as the party's core group chalked out its strategy ahead of the CLP meeting, Congress sources said.

The meeting was called after Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra gave his consent to a proposal by the Ashok Gehlot Cabinet to call an assembly session from August 14.

The governor had turned down three earlier proposals, saying if the government wanted the assembly summoned at a short notice it should state that it planned to hold a vote of confidence.

Or, it should give 21 days' notice to call and assembly session, Mishra had said.

Gehlot is caught in a tussle for power with his now-sacked deputy Sachin Pilot, who leads a group of 18 other dissident Congress MLAs.

On July 12, Pilot declared open rebellion against Gehlot by claiming that his government was in a minority and he has the support of 30 Congress MLAs.

And on July 13, Congress legislators and supporters were huddled into the hotel.

They have been camping there since then.

Meanwhile, the Rajasthan High Court on Thursday resumed hearing on a plea filed by a BJP legislator against the Speaker's decision to reject his complaint against the merger of six BSP MLAs into Congress.

BJP's Madan Dilawar had filed a complaint before Speaker C P Joshi in March this year against the merger, which the Speaker rejected on July 24.

Dilawar then filed a writ petition in the high court, challenging the Speaker's decision.

He has alleged the Speaker did not hear him when deciding his complaint.

A bench of Justice Mahendra Kumar Goyal began hearing his plea on Wednesday but it remained inconclusive.

He resumed the hearing on Thursday.