Reacting to the Rajasthan Assembly Speaker C P Joshi’s “Office Note” in which he recorded that the 81 MLAs who submitted their resignations in September did not do so voluntarily, a leader in the Sachin Pilot camp on Tuesday said it was not only “grave indiscipline” but also “illegal” to intimidate public representatives.

“Intimidating public representatives is punishable by law. And whether they were allured or threatened, the party high command should take cognisance,” said the leader. Pilot, a former deputy Chief Minister, was said to have been the Congress high command’s choice to replace Ashok Gehlot as the Chief Minister when the MLAs — 70 of them from the Congress — submitted their resignation letters to Joshi on September 25, precipitating a crisis.