NEW DELHI, 7 September 2003 — The Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati is headed for a split in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. BSP rebel legislators, who claim their numbers are around 40, were to meet the speaker, Kesri Nath Tripathi, to seek formal recognition as a separate group in the house.
In the 403 member UP Assembly BSP has a total strength of 109 MLAs, out of which 37 legislators are needed to formally split the party and to avoid anti-defection act. Now the dissident BSP legislators claim that they have already crossed the mark as they are claiming to be 40 in numbers. The BSP dissident group led by heavyweight MLA Haji Yaqub yesterday met Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh, and assured him of the support of 40 MLAs.
The claim, however, was rejected by the BSP leaders who said only 15 MLAs had so far indicated plans to leave the party. Thirteen of them belonged to the group of legislators who had called on the governor, Vishnu Kant Shastri, to urge him to allow Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav to form the government. Two more MLAs had since joined the group. The Samajwadi Party was making all efforts to win over more BSP MLAs but without success, the BSP leaders claimed.
BSP Legislators group leader in the state assembly Swami Prasad Maurya has alleged that Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav was “misusing” the official machinery to send threatening messages to his party MLAs through government officials. He demanded protection for his party MLAs from the SP’s “coercive tactics”. Maurya said that the SP was using intimidatory tactics to force the BSP legislators to split the party.
The BSP rebels include tainted former UP minister Amar Mani Tripathi. The former minister is facing a CBI probe in the murder of Madhumita Shukla.
Another BSP leader and party MP, Rashid Alvi has charged the BJP and Mulayam Singh Yadav with trying to split his party MLAs in that state. “Money and all kinds of pressure tactics are being used to break the Uttar Pradesh BSP Legislature Party,” Alvi said here yesterday.
“Everybody knows that BJP and Mulayam Singh Yadav are doing all this and they are using money and all kinds of pressure tactics to split BSP,” he said.
