Assembly not yet t be fully constituted

Lucknow, May 8: The Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh will complete one year in office on May 13 but the state assembly is yet to be fully constituted in the absence of the nominated Anglo-Indian member.

While the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) increased its strength from 206 to 215 in last one year, the government did nothing for the nomination of the Anglo-Indian member, without which the House cannot be defined as a complete assembly.

According to Article 333 of the Constitution, the Governor nominates an Ango-Indian member in the assembly on recommendation of the state government.

The strength of the UP assembly is 404 with one seat being reserved for the nominated member.

According to sources, the state governor has the sole power to nominate the member and the speaker of the assembly has nothing to do with the issue.

In the last budget session of the assembly, Congress Legislature Party leader Pramod Tiwari had raised the issue demanding to know the reason behind the delay in the nomination process. But the government did not give any specific reply and state parliamentary affairs minister Lalji Verma commented that the process of nominating the member was on.

But still two months after the budget session, no nomination was made in the assembly.

On the other hand, the BSP government had made a major move in strengthening its number in the lower house even after getting a majority of seats in the 2007 assembly elections.

While the BSP had added nine seats within the year taking the numbers to 215 from 206, the main opposition Samajwadi Party, however, had to lose two seats. The number of SP members came down to 95 from 97 which they won in the assembly elections. Both the SP seats- Swartanda and Farrukhabad- were wrested by the BSP, when the winning SP members switched loyality in favour of the ruling party.

The Congress had also lost one member- Ajay Pratap Singh, alias Lalla Bhaiyya, from Colonelganj seat in Gonda when he resigned and joined the BSP. Now, the strength of the Congress in the assembly is 21.

The ruling BSP also got the support of the Independents, when Rajpal Tyagi resigned as independent and got elected on a BSP ticket.

In the last one year, four political parties having five members in the assembly merged with the ruling BSP.

The D P Yadav-led Rashtriya Parivartan Dal(RPD) merged with the BSP on March 4 which, had two members-- Mr Yadav and his wife-- in the assembly. Similarly, one member each Akhil Bharatiya Loktrantrik Congress Party and United Demoncratic Front merged with BSP on June 3 while Bharatiya Janshakti Party did the same on May 23 last year.

UNI MB SB BST1340