SP asks Prez not to buckle to Cong pressure for President's Rule

Lucknow, Feb 18 (UNI)The ruling Samajwadi Party today requested the President not to sign the recommendation of the Union Cabinet imposing President Rule in Uttar Pradesh if at all such a situation arose.

Senior SP leader and former Union minister Beni Prasad Verma said here that the President should not sign on the recommendation of the Union Cabinet for taking action under Article 356 in the state.

''Through the media, we request the President not to sign the recommendation... during a debate on Article 356, the Constitution makers had maintained that President's Rule in any state should be imposed in the rarest of rare cases,'' he said.

He pointed that the President was bound to sign on the recommendation if it was sent to him for the second time. ''When I was a member of the Union Cabinet, we had recommended President's rule. But the President had returned the file...we did not send the file again as it could have amounted to going against the wishes of the President,'' he added.

The SP general secretary said the Congress too was a divided house on the issue of imposing President's rule in UP. ''There is no breakdown of the machinery in the state. The Supreme Court judgement is clear that only 13 MLAs stand disqualified. Even without the 13 MLAs, the SP is a majority party in the legislative assembly,'' he said, referring to the S R Bommai case ruling of the apex court.

He said while Congress was divided on the issue, the CPI (M) was not in favour of imposing President's rule in the state. ''The CPI has demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav.

But it is also not in favour of Article 356 in UP,'' he added.

Mentioning about the Anti-Defection Law, he said the law itself was unconstitutional as it checked the freedom of expression by elected representatives. The former Union minister said when UP was asked about its views on the Anti-Defection Law, the state had recommended that the law be made flexible.

On the role of state governor T V Rajeswar, he said the Governor was free to send its reports to the Centre. ''But he should not consult UPCC president Salman Khurshid or BJP leader Lalji Tandon while filing his reports,'' he said.

He claimed that Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Pramod Tiwari and BJP legislature party leader Lalji Tandon were too obliged to speak anything against the state government. ''Their outcry for President's rule is only for public consumption,'' he added.

UNI