Mulayam has no legal right to rule UP: Cong

New Delhi, Feb 14 (UNI) The Congress today demanded the immediate resignation of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav for horse trading, stating that he had lost ''ethical, moral and legal right to rule'' in the wake of the Supreme Court verdict on the BSP split.

''Our apprehensions of horse trading by Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav have turned out to be true. This is the worst kind of horse trading,'' AICC Spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan told reporters.

The Congress was, however, non-committal on imposition of President's rule in Uttar Pradesh.

Asked whether the party would demand the dismissal of the Samajwadi Party government in that state, Ms Natarajan said Article 356 was an issue between the Central government and the state Governor.

She repeated her reply to another query -- whether UP was a fit case for imposition of President's rule.

The apex court today rejected the petitions of 37 UP MLAs belonging to the BSP breakaway group, who had formed an independent group called the Bahujan Loktantrik Dal (BLD) and enabled Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav to form a government in the state.

A five-member Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justices H K Sema, A R Lakshmanan, P K Balasubramanyan and D K Jain, in its unanimous verdict, held that 13 MLAs of the breakaway group, who had defected on August 27, 2003, were guilty of defection and disqualified them as MLAs.

UNI