No whip for Presidential polls: Mulayam

Lucknow, July 18(UNI) Though Samajwadi Party has decided to abstain from the Presidential polls tomorrow, party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav held a close door meeting with his legislators this evening to discuss the issue.

In his brief interaction with the media, Mr Yadav refused to say anything about the party's decision on abstaining from the polls.

He said that the party had not issued any whip or will do it for the presidential polls.

However, some legislators maintained that they will be moving out of Lucknow tonight and thus will not be availble for tomorrow's voting.

Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party's deputy leader in the assembly Mohd Azam Khan, after the meeting said '' we have more important work than to attend the election of President''.

'' Tomorrow I have to appear in a criminal case before the High Court and there is no directive from the Election Commission to spare me from appearing before the court'', he added.

Mr Khan also questioned the impartiality of the EC during the just concluded assembly polls in UP. ''If they cannot allow people to cast their votes in the assembly polls, how can they ensure voting in an indirect election,'' he added.

While the UP legislative assembly has a total of 404 MLAs, three seats are vacant and the lone nominated MLA has no voting rights.

With each MLA having a vote value of 208, the state MLAs enjoy a total value of 83,200, perhaps the largest in the country.

The ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Congress, Rashtriya Lok Dal, Jan Morcha and some Independents are supporting UPA-Left nominee Pratibha Patil. The BJP, along with JD (U) and some other MLAs is supporting Independent candidate and Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.

The Principal Opposition Samajwadi Party, which is part of the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA), has decided to abstain from voting, much to the dismay of the NDA. With 94 MLAs in the house, the vote value of SP stands at 19,552.

Despite NDA's efforts, if the SP manages to stand by its decision, UP MLAs will cast a total of 63,648 votes on July 19 -- provided all those not abstaining turn up to exercise their franchise.

UNI