Shivraj Singh Chouhan passes floor test; Congress MLAs absent

Bhopal: A day after assuming office, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan passed the floor test in the state Assembly on Tuesday by voice vote. No member of the opposition Congress was present in the House. As the special session of the state Assembly began, Chouhan moved a one-line proposal to seek trust of the House, which was endorsed by members through the voice vote. Senior BJP MLA Jagdish Devda, one of the members of the speaker's panel, was on the chair of Speaker.

Two Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs, a legislator of the Samajwadi Party and two independent MLAs - Surendra Singh Shera (Burhanpur) and Vikram Singh Rana (Susner) - also supported the BJP government during the floor test. There are four independent MLAs in the state, but two of them were absent during the floor test. The House unanimously passed the trust vote of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government.

Later, Devda adjourned the House till 11 am on March 27. In the morning, the BJP issued whip to its MLAs to support the trust vote. Earlier, Kamal Nath resigned as chief minister of the state last week after his government lost majority following the resignation of 22 Congress MLAs. Chouhan, 61, is now back as Madhya Pradesh chief minister for a record fourth term. After winning the trust vote, Chouhan took a dim view of the absence of Congress MLAs in the Assembly. "It is undemocratic on part of the Congress that its members remained absent from the House," he told reporters. However, Congress MLA P C Sharma said Tuesday's trust vote had no meaning. The BJP government should have sought the trust vote after byelections in 24 Assembly seats lying vacant, the former state minister said.