UPA has numbers but not legitimacy: BJP

New Delhi, Jul 22 (UNI) As the four-year-old UPA Government established its numbers during the trust vote in the Lok Sabha this evening, the BJP said the Congress-led coalition surely had secured a victory but its legitimacy was in question because of the process the ruling coalition had adopted during the last one week.

Reacting to results of the confidence vote secured by the UPA government 275-256 votes in the House, BJP spokesman Ravishankar Prasad said the ruling party had the numbers on board edging away the combined opposition by a margin of 19 votes.

Three BJP MPs, today itself, deposited the money given to them for abstention with the Lok Sabha Speaker along with evidence and a probe that had been ordered.

''The victory is there for the UPA, but I doubt if they have legitimacy,'' he remarked while taking part in a news channel debate.

Mr Prasad said the BJP was not against the ruling party showing its numbers through fair means but three MPs have complained and deposited the currency wads they have received along with written complaints narrating the events.

The BJP spokesman said the confidence vote in the Lok Sabha was not the end of the story as elections were just months away.

''We are preparing for the bigger battle. Who knows who will have the last laugh when the people will give their mandate,'' he remarked.

To a question if Mr Faggan Singh Kulaste, one of those who made complaint, was not the same MP who was suspended by the BJP in the 2005 Local Area Development scandal, Mr Prasad said one should be fair to Mr Kulaste as he had been exonerated in the probe that followed.

Answering a query if the BJP was the 'author of the sting' since the MPs had presented the Compact Discs along with wads of currency, Mr Prasad said the CDs were handed over by the Chief Editor of a news channel who conducted the sting. ''It is not a pro-BJP channel,'' Mr Prasad said.

Mr Prasad, however, expressed his reservations about three convicted MPs exercising their franchise because of the loopholes in the law. ''We all should be concerned,'' he said.

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