{"id":306326,"date":"2018-11-30T07:14:32","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T07:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=306326"},"modified":"2018-11-30T07:14:32","modified_gmt":"2018-11-30T07:14:32","slug":"dissident-bjp-leader-challenges-jk-assembly-dissolution-in-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/dissident-bjp-leader-challenges-jk-assembly-dissolution-in-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Dissident BJP leader challenges J&#038;K Assembly dissolution in Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-306327 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/gagan-bhagat-300x206.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"339\" height=\"233\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/11\/gagan-bhagat-300x206.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/11\/gagan-bhagat-100x70.jpg 100w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/11\/gagan-bhagat-218x150.jpg 218w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/11\/gagan-bhagat.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 339px) 100vw, 339px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">In an interesting twist to the recent political drama surrounding the competitive staking of claim by the PDP and People&#8217;s Conference to government formation, a former BJP MLA Gagan Bhagat has challenged in the Supreme Court\u00a0 the dissolution of J&amp;K\u00a0 Assembly by Governor Satya Pal Malik.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Bhagat was suspended by the party in August this year after he publicly spoke in favour of the Article 35A, the\u00a0 law which grants special privileges to the J&amp;K state subjects and forbids outsiders from settling in the state.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Bhagat filed a writ petition in the apex court through his advocate D Mahesh Babu. Bhagat has been supported by another BJP dissident leader Deena Nath Bhagat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u00a0Both have termed the dissolution of the Assembly unconstitutional and sought the conduct of the floor test before inviting any party or a coalition of parties to form the government.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cI think the dissolution of J&amp;K Assembly at the eleventh hour is unconstitutional. So, I have filed a writ petition in SC to challenge it,\u201d Bhagat told the media.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">He\u00a0 said Governor Malik should have allowed Mehbooba Mufti and Sajjad Lone who staked claim to form their respective government\u00a0 a chance to prove their majority.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;Isn&#8217;t this what democracy is all about?&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Bhagat said there was no reason for the Governor to suddenly dissolve the Assembly after keeping it in suspended animation for five months.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;I also found it odd that the fax machine was not working at the Governor&#8217;s office the day Mehbooba and Lone sent their respective letters,&#8221; Bhagat said. &#8220;But it started working around the same time when Governor issued the order to dissolve the Assembly&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an interesting twist to the recent political drama surrounding the competitive staking of claim by the PDP and People&#8217;s Conference to government formation, a former BJP MLA Gagan Bhagat has challenged in the Supreme Court\u00a0 the dissolution of J&amp;K\u00a0 Assembly by Governor Satya Pal Malik.\u00a0 Bhagat was suspended by the party in August this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":306327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2016,2009,2014],"tags":[10008,1376,9817,4366],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306328,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306326\/revisions\/306328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/306327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}