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Mayawati demolishes list of BSP rebels, says speaker is biased

Bahujan Samaj Party Legislature Party leader and two-time Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati today paraded before mediapersons seven party legislators who had been listed among the defectors in a fresh affidavit submitted to UP assembly speaker Kesrinath Tripathi.

Addressing a news conference on the eve of Thursday's special assembly session, Mayawati said Choudhry Narendra Singh had moved an affidavit before the speaker this afternoon, claiming that during the controversial vote of confidence in the House on October 21, 26 BSP legislators had defected, but out of them nine went back to the parent party.

According to Mayawati, even "if we go as per the claim of the rebel group, then there remains only 17 legislators who have defected from the BSP, which does not count as one-third of the total strength of the party." Hence, she said they attract the provisions of the anti-defection law and should be disqualified as legislators immediately.

The BSP leader charged the speaker with dilly-dallying in deciding the issue of disqualification for the benefit of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, to which he belongs.

Mayawati said she was sending a letter to the assembly speaker immediately, urging him to ensure separate voting tomorrow for the 17 party legislators, so that the Supreme Court could see the situation in true perspective on the following day while deciding the issue of disqualification of 12 legislators.

She said the assembly secretariat's official list showed that out of 66 BSP legislators, 12 were under dispute. Recently, the BJP had claimed that five more had defected. These five MLAs are those whom the Kalyan Singh government had accorded cabinet minister status by offering them chairmanship of different state-owned corporations.

Asked if she had any apprehension about the assembly speaker's impartiality, the BSP leader said, "The way the speaker is handling the issue of disqualification of 12 BSP rebels, it is not sure that the voting will be fair."

She said every political party had signed a no-confidence motion against the speaker and the BSP also had no faith in Tripathi.

The BSP leader said a whip had also been issued to those five BSP legislators, whose loyalty had been claimed by the ruling BJP. Regarding issuance of whip to 12 party defectors, who had formed the Jantantrik Bahujan Samaj Party outside the House, she said she was awaiting the speaker's response. If the speaker takes a decision today, there is no question of issuing a whip to them as they would no longer remain legislators, she added.

Mayawati also denied reports that her party was planning to abstain from voting in Thursday's trial of strength between Kalyan Singh and Jagdambika Pal on the floor of the House. The BSP leader said an appeal was made before the speaker on Tuesday to settle the issue on the same day, but he chose to ignore it, and chose to hear another case involving Hari Kishan Srivastava, a BSP MLA who first defected and then resigned from the assembly membership. Srivastava, a former speaker, is now contesting the Lok Sabha election from Bilhaur constituency as the Samajwadi Party nominee.

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