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Ashok Chavan is one of 11 Congress MLAs that missed the Maharashtra floor vote because of traffic.

Senior party leaders expressed alarm and questioned the “recklessness” and “casual behavior” of the 11 Congress MLAs who did not participate in the floor vote on Monday, including former CM Ashok Chavan.

The MVA only received 99 votes on Monday, down from the 107 it received on Sunday at the Speaker’s election.

Pranati Shinde, Jitesh Antapurkar, Vijay Waddetiwar, Zeeshan Siddiqui, Dheeraj Deshmukh, Kunal Patil, Raju Awale, Mohan Hambarde, Shirish Chaudhari, and Madhavrao Javalgaonkar are among those who did not vote in addition to Chavan.

The casual behavior of this group of MLAs is shocking, according to a top Congress official in Maharashtra, even as their absence has fueled rumours that some of them may be corrupt “in interaction with other parties” It exemplifies their carelessness.

Eight MLAs arrived late and waited in the lobby, according to H K Patil, the AICC secretary in charge of Maharashtra. No political relevance exists. They might have gotten stuck in the weather and the traffic. There are sometimes inescapable causes.

We were two or three minutes late, according to Chavan. The gates were shut. There is no wrongdoing. We encountered traffic problems.

A top member of the Congress criticized “lack of preparation.” “One reason members might not be serious is that our structured whip and meetings did not take place. Nobody was in charge of organizing and keeping track of the members’ attendance, and there was no plan in place, he claimed.

“There was some confusion, and we assumed that there would first be debate and then vote… but voting started first,” said Siddiqui, a Bandra MLA. We were requested to arrive at 11:00 even though there was no CLP meeting. I arrived five minutes late due to traffic, but we were already in the lobby. We requested entry from the Speaker because voting had not yet begun, but we received no response.

The daughter of former CM Sushilkumar Shinde, MPCC working president Praniti Shinde, stated: “I was not available. I told the gathering that I would be absent because of work.

Devendra Fadnavis, a leader in the BJP and the deputy chief minister, congratulated every MLA “who was absent” in the House for “helping” his party “expand the margin of victory.”