Rishika Singh
Whether it is to gain power or topple the government in politics, the role of resort politics has been seen to be very important for some time now. From the recent Rajya Sabha elections to the political crisis in Maharashtra, resort politics is very effective. Eknath Shinde, a rebel Shiv Sena leader in Maharashtra, has claimed that he has the support of around 50 MLAs. Let us inform that all these MLAs are staying at Radisson Blu Hotel in Guwahati, Assam.
However resort politics is not new and unique to any party or state in India. Instances of resort politics have been seen several times since at least the 1980s, as coalition governments have been seen. This is more commonly seen when a party has to prove its majority in the assembly.
Resort politics has also been resorted to in Rajya Sabha elections. In the recently held Rajya Sabha elections, 70 Congress MLAs in Rajasthan were kept at a resort in Udaipur. Congress also benefited from this. The Congress emerged victorious in three out of four seats in Rajasthan in the Rajya Sabha election results, which Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot described as a “victory for democracy”.
Many such examples of resort politics have come to the fore in Indian politics, when legislators have been taken to hotels to topple and save the government.
July 2020: In the midst of the crisis on the Congress government in Rajasthan, the Congress had accommodated its MLAs at the Fairmont Hotel in the state to prevent defections. The MLAs who supported Pilot were in Delhi themselves and later moved to a resort in the BJP-ruled state. However, in the end the government did not fall and Ashok Gehlot remained the Chief Minister. At present, the loss happened to Sachin Pilot and he was removed from the post of Deputy Chief Minister.
March 2020: Congress MLAs are taken to Prestige Golf Club in the BJP-ruled state of Bengaluru in an attempt to topple the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh. Earlier, Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia had also left the party. With his support, Shivraj Singh Chouhan became the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh for the fourth time. However, Scindia later joined the BJP and was sent to the Rajya Sabha. Let us inform that now he is the Union Civil Aviation Minister.
2000: This was the year when the Bihar Assembly Speaker invited Nitish Kumar to form the government despite not having a majority. Although Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD emerged as the single largest party in the elections, Nitish Kumar was called by the governor to form the government. In such a situation, Congress and RJD, opposition parties had sent some of their members to a hotel in Patna. However, before the trust vote, Nitish Kumar tendered his resignation and RJD’s Rabri Devi became the first woman chief minister of Bihar.
1984: The example of resort politics was also seen in Andhra Pradesh in 1984. Where the state finance minister Nadendla Bhaskar Rao toppled the government of Chief Minister NTR with the support of the Congress. Film superstar-turned-politician NTR was out of the country and the governor made Bhaskar Rao the chief minister. During that time NTR had kept around 160 MLAs in his studio with all facilities. However, Bhaskar Rao could not prove his majority and his government fell. NTR again came to power.
In 1995, NTR’s son-in-law N Chandrababu Naidu wanted to expel NTR from the party in Andhra Pradesh. Such NTR loyalists were sent to the Viceroy Hotel in Hyderabad to handle the TDP.