67 BSP MLAs resign; 11 others join BSP

Lucknow, Feb 24 (UNI) In a dramatic move just 48 hours before the slated vote of confidence for the Mulayam Singh Yadav government, altogether 78 MLAs, including 67 of the entire Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLAs in Uttar Pradesh today resigned from the state Assembly.

The BSP's action has taken out the fizz to some extent of the proposed trust vote of the Samajwadi Party (SP) government and it is likely that other parties like the BJP, Congress and RLD might do the same before the Assembly sitting on Monday.

The BSP legislators have submitted their resignations to party supremo Mayawati, who will send it to the Assembly speaker.

The eleven other MLAs -- BJP-5, SP-4, IND-2 -- have also resigned and joined the BSP. The MLAs who have joined the BSP are Amar Singh Yadav and Mahesh Chandra (both Independents), Fateh Bahadur Singh, Ram Prasad Choudhury, Badshah Singh, Jagdish Mishra and Fagu Chauhan (all BJP), Mrs Omvati, Kalyan Singh, Sunder lal and Ratan Lal Ahirwar (all SP).

Talking to mediapersons here, Ms Mayawati said the state government was ''unconstitutional'' as the term of the present Assembly ends tomorrow. She also alleged Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey was ''biased'' and acting like a ''member of the ruling party''.

''The term of the present 14th Assembly expires on February 25 as the Election Commission had notified the new Assembly on the same date in 2002,'' she claimed.

She further maintained the Speaker has also failed to implement the Supreme Court verdict disqualifying 13 members of the Loktantrik Bahujan Dal.

'''Till date, the speaker did not release the fresh list of the Assembly and consider the fate of the remaining 24 MLAs,'' she said.

This will be the second time that the MLAs are resigning enmass with SP doing the same in September, 2001 when Rajnath Singh of the BJP was the Chief Minister. They were demanding that the Assembly polls should be held in october 2001, while BJP was claiming that as per the first sitting of the house, the elections were due in February, 2002.

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