SP, BSP heading for showdown in House
THE RULING Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party are heading for a showdown in the State Assembly on Wednesday. While Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey summoned all the 37 members of the BSP breakaway group for a hearing on March 11, the BSP on Tuesday issued a whip to the group with the direction that they should vote against the Mulayam Singh Yadav Government on any motion in the House.
THE RULING Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party are heading for a showdown in the State Assembly on Wednesday.
While Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey summoned all the 37 members of the BSP breakaway group for a hearing on March 11, the BSP on Tuesday issued a whip to the group with the direction that they should vote against the Mulayam Singh Yadav Government on any motion in the House.
Talking to newspersons after a BSP MLAs’ meeting, legislature party leader Swami Prasad Maurya said action would be taken against those violating the whip. He said the party had asked the Speaker to provide a fresh list of all the MLAs in the House with their party affiliation, but had not received it so far. The BSP MLAs chalked out the strategy to tackle the situation in the House on Wednesday. Five MLAs, who had left the breakaway group, also attended the BSP meeting. Maurya said the whip was pasted on residences of the rebels in Lucknow.
BSP chief whip Inderjit Saroj, in his letter to members of the breakaway group, said that after the High Court judgement on February 28, all those who had defected from the party had once again become members of the parent party.
Saroj said the then Speaker Keshari Nath Tripathi had recognised the 40-member breakaway group, as the Loktantrik Bahujan Dal on September 6, 2003 and later the new outfit merged with the SP. But, after the quashing of the Speaker’s orders, they had once again become BSP members. Saroj said now the whip would be effective on all these members, including other MLAs, who were elected on the party symbol. He said violation of the whip would attract provisions of disqualification under the law.
On the other hand, the Speaker had last week directed the rebel group to continue to take the seats earlier allocated to them, along with the SP. The BSP has opposed the Speaker’s order. Minister Rajendra Singh Rana told newspersons that the Speaker had already given his interim order about the seating arrangements. He also said the BSP whip was meaningless, adding that the breakaway group was still part of the SP.
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