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Bharatiya Janata Party dissidents held a meeting in Lucknow on Wednesday and reiterated their demands.
"Our mission is to save the party, not to cause any damage to it," said Ramasheesh Rai, spokesman of the recently formed 'BJP Bachao Samiti'.
The party had suspended Rai, a Member of the Legislative Council, along with Member of the Legislative Assembly Ganga Bhakt Singh, who is also the convenor of the committee.
"We don't intend to topple the government... let all BJP ministers step down from office and let our party support the government from outside. I am sure that will be in the larger interest of the party," he asserted.
He said Chief Minister Mayawati should request Governor Vishnukant Shastri to convene a special session of the assembly.
It was apparent that the dissidents were demoralised. The meeting was not attended by the 12 MLAs who had earlier expressed loss of faith in the six-month old BSP-BJP coalition.
Of the nine dissidents who attended the meeting, four were MLCs. Rai said, "They are away from Lucknow on account of the festival season."
The arrest of two powerful independents, Raghuraj Pratap Singh and Dhananjay Singh, on charges of threatening MLA Puran Singh Bundela, had demoralised the dissidents.
Not only the BJP dissidents, but even Samajwadi Party workers had staged major protests against the arrest. They even met Shastri in this connection and submitted a memorandum, but to no avail.
The morale of the dissidents was high thanks to the muscle power provided by the two independents. But ever since the two were sent off to the high security Fatehgarh Jail, the dissidents mellowed.
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