Five UP MLAs disqualified from assembly

Lucknow, June 10 : Uttar Pradesh assembly Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey today disqualified five MLAs from the state legislative assembly.

These legislators -- Jaiveer Singh, Surendra Vikram Singh, Ramji Shukla, Ram Krishna and Dharampal -- had rejoined the BSP deserting the Loktrantrik Bahujan Dal (LBD) on March 1.

An announcement of their disqualification was made by the Speaker at a crowded news conference here this evening.

The five MLAs were part of a 38 MLA group, who split from the BSP in August, 2003 to join the ruling Samajwadi Party, which was forming government in UP after Ms Mayawati -- leading the BSP-BJP coalition government -- had resigned.

After a High Court decision on February 28 this year, they had expressed willingness to rejoin the BSP.

But, the Speaker rejected their contention and disqualified them.

The 5 MLAs rejoined the BSP on March 1 after the Allahabad High Court by its majority judgement had quashed the split and merger of the 38-member LBD of September 2003. Leaving BSP, these MLAs had formed the LBD and later joined the ruling SP.

During the hearing of the case lasting three months, the counsels for the 5 MLAs pleaded there was no existance of LBD, hence the petition was not maintainable.

The counsels claimed there was no legal existance of LBD and the MLAs had rejoined their parent party from where they were elected to UP assembly. Thus, disqualification under 10th schedule of the constitution did not arise against them.

They also raised the question about the legal sanctity of the petitioner Yogesh Pratap Singh, who had termed himself as the LBD's chief whip. ''There is no legal document to prove that Mr Singh is the chief whip of LBD,'' the counsels maintained.

Earlier, the Lucknow bench of Allahabad HC had reserved its judgement on the MLAs' plea to instruct the speaker to provide them relevant documents.

Counsel for MLA Ramkrishna, Raghevendra Pratap Singh during previous hearings said they had received only the party list dated April 4, 2006 whereas the HC directive on May 29 had asked the speaker to give all 'relevant documents'.

The speaker said after the HC judgement of February 28, 2006, the party list was released on April 4.

Petitioner and UP minister Yogesh Pratap Singh claimed the MLAs were deleberately delaying hearing by moving applications demanding more time and other documents before the Speaker and the HC.

The five MLAs were also demanding the current party position list in the assembly and party-wise electoral rolls used during the biennial Rajya Sabha polls on March 28.

At one point of time, the counsels of the five MLAs had demanded the list claiming it would decide whether the MLAs had left the party or not.

In the preliminary objections, the MLAs claimed there was no existence of LBD. They have also demanded party list during the RS polls and documents relating to the existence of the LBD and its chief whip.

Earlier on May 5, the Supreme Court had turned down the plea of the MLAs to prevent the Speaker from hearing the case.

UNI