JAIPUR: Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra on Wednesday returned for the third time a proposal from the state government to convene the assembly, saying the Cabinet had refused to state the reason why it wanted a session at short notice.
As the impasse over calling a session deepened, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot held a 15-minute meeting Mishra at the Raj Bhawan.
The state cabinet met later.
The Governor said if the government was not stating the reason for holding a short-notice session, it could call a regular session at 21 day's notice.
He asked the Gehlot cabinet to resubmit its proposal, giving a "solid reason" for calling a session at short notice.
"The love letter has already come. Now, I am only going to have tea with him," Gehlot told party workers at the state Congress office before heading for the Raj Bhawan.
The state Cabinet had resent a proposal to the Governor on Tuesday, sticking to the July 31 date for holding a session and refusing to mention that it planned to hold a trust vote.
While returning the earlier version of the proposal the Governor had suggested that the session can be called at short notice if the government says seeking a confidence vote is on the agenda.
He repeated this on Wednesday.
"This can be a reasonable ground for calling a session at short notice," Mishra said in the statement.
Otherwise, he said, it would be better that government calls a regular session, like the monsoon session, at a 21-day notice.
In a three-page press statement from the Raj Bhawan, the Governor said the government had not given clear replies to his previous queries.
He had earlier asked the state government to redraft its proposal, taking into account three points: a 21-day notice, live broadcast of the proceedings if there is a trust vote, and social distancing during the session.
In addition, he had said a short-notice session was possible if a trust vote was on the agenda.
Although the Congress has said it wants to prove its majority in the House, it is reluctant to state this in the proposal.
A minister said Tuesday that it was for the Business Advisory Committee of the assembly to decide the agenda.
The Cabinet should also make it clear why the sitting is being summoned without much notice under the present adverse circumstances, Mishra said in a reference to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He questioned why the lives of over 1,200 people be put in danger without any special reason.
The Governor said he has no objection to summoning the House as per the rules.
The note also referred to the MLAs who are holed up in hotels in Rajasthan and elsewhere and said it is the constitutional duty of the Governor to ensure their free movement and presence in the House.
"But instead of giving a reason, it is being mentioned that the Governor is bound to accept the decision of the Cabinet," the Raj Bhawan said.
The Governor said the first proposal for an assembly session was received on July 23 but it did not have the Cabinet's approval and no a date was mentioned.
At the PCC meeting, Gehlot told Congress workers that there was nothing to worry about as the party's top leadership was with them.
Govind Singh Dotasra formally took over as the new chief of the state unit at the meeting.
Targeting the Governor, Gehlot said, "You have sent the letter a third time.What do you want? Tell us, so that we work in that manner."
Ashok Gehlot is caught in a power tussle with his now sacked deputy, Sachin Pilot, who has the support of 18 dissident Congress MLAs.
Altogether, the Congress has 107 MLAs in the 200-member assembly and the BJP 72.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is back to being Ministry of Education with the Union Cabinet approving the change in its name on Wednesday.
The name change was among the key recommendations of the draft New Education Policy, which was also cleared in Wednesday's Cabinet meeting.
The Ministry of Education was renamed as the HRD ministry in 1985, during the tenure of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The next year the National Education Policy (NEP) was introduced which was later amended in 1992.
PV Narasimha Rao became the first HRD minister in the Rajiv Gandhi Cabinet.
A panel headed by former ISRO Chairman K Kasturirangan, tasked with working on the new NEP, had first proposed that the name of the ministry should be changed again.
In 2018, the idea was also mooted by Ram Bahadur Rai, chairman of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and also chairman of the joint organising committee of the Conference on Academic Leadership on Education for Resurgence.
At a conference organsied by RSS affiliate Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal, Rao had suggesting that former PM Rajiv Gandhi had changed the name of the education ministry to HRD ministry in September 1985 under the advice of some "people who may have misled him", and opined that "treating education or humans as resource is against Indian values that look at education more holistically".
A new education policy was part of the Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto ahead of the 2014 general election.
The K Kasturirangan panel had submitted the draft of the new NEP to Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' when he took charge last year.
The drafting experts also took into account the report of a panel headed by former cabinet secretary T S R Subramanian and formed by the HRD Ministry when it was headed by Union Minister Smriti Irani.