Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann announced that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in the state will table a motion of confidence in a special Assembly session on Thursday to prove that no party MLA has defected.
“On 22 September, Thursday, a special session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha will be convened and a vote of confidence will be presented… long live the revolution..!” Mann tweeted in Punjabi.
This comes days after the AAP accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of trying to topple its government and claimed that some of its MLAs were approached by the saffron party with an offer of Rs 25 crore to each of them.
In a video message, Mann said,”You must have heard how they tried to contact our MLAs and tried to offer money and other allurements in an attempt to topple the government which was elected with a huge mandate.”
“We are summoning a special session of Punjab Assembly on September 22 in which we will show how elected MLAs are determined to realise the dream of making the state vibrant…We will bring a trust vote in that session,” said Mann, who is in Germany.
Notably, Punjab’s Finance Minister and AAP leader Harpal Singh Cheema had recently alleged that some BJP leaders had approached seven to 10 MLAs of his party with money and ministerial positions under ‘Operation Lotus’.
Earlier this month Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government in Delhi also tabled a confidence motion in Assembly after levelling allegations of MLA-poaching against the BJP and won. As many as 58 MLAs voted in favour of Kejriwal’s AAP in the trust vote. The ruling party has 62 MLAs in the 70-member Delhi Assembly, while the BJP has eight.
