SP to take legal option if President's rule imposed in UP

Lucknow, Feb 17 (UNI) Samajwadi Party today dared the Centre to impose President's Rule in Uttar Pradesh, announcing that it would go for the legal option if the government was dismissed.

'' SP will be forced to take the legal option if dismissed through unconstitutional means as being forced by the opposition parties by wrong interpretation of the Supreme Court judgement over disqualification of 13 MLAs'', said former advocate general of the state and SP Rajya Sabha member Virendra Bhatia.

Addressing a press conference here, he claimed that there is no legal sanctity for unposing President's Rule in the state in view of the SC ruling.'' When the government is enjoying majority in the assembly then how can a democratically elected government be dismissed'', he questioned.

'' SP will certainly knock the doors of the judiciary and go to the peoples' court, if Centre tries to use Article 356 of the Constitution in UP at this juncture'', he asserted.

Demanding immediate resignation of BJP president Keshri Nath Tripathi after the SC verdict, he said the apex court had reprimanded the judgement of Mr Tripathi who was the speaker at that time to approve the split and merger.'' He has no moral to continue his political career after the SC ruling'', Mr Bhatia said.

Clarifying the SC judgement over the disqualification process of the remaining 24 MLAS, the SP RS member said that they are still ''honourable members of the house'' as no one has moved any petition against them for their disqualification.

'' Under clause six of the 10th schedule of the constitution, only the Speaker has the power to decide on the disqualification of any member'', he said while rejecting the claim of the opposition parties that all the 37 Loktrantrik Bahujan Dal(LBD) members have been disqualified.

On the demand of the opposition for resignation of the SP government on moral grounds, Mr Bhatia sought to know where were the morals of the Congress when it imposed President's Rule in Bihar and engineered political turmoil in Jharkhand.

UNI