Chink exposed, CM pulls it through

The ruling BSP-BJP coalition today survived a scare in the election for one seat of the legislative council, thanks to the Congress decision...

The ruling BSP-BJP coalition today survived a scare in the election for one seat of the legislative council, thanks to the Congress decision to abstain from voting. But the fact that its candidate’s tally was eight short of majority in the House exposed Chief Minister Mayawati’s vulnerability though she refused to concede the point.

The ruling combine’s nominee, Munna Singh Chauhan, trounced the Opposition candidate, Yashwant Singh, 194-183. The total number of votes polled were 379 of which two were declared invalid. The effective strength of the House is 403 and for a majority the government should have a strength of 202.

Yashwant Singh, the candidate propped up by the SP and BJP rebels and deserted by the Congress at the last moment, said he had achieved what he had set out to do: ‘‘I was not in the contest to become an MLC but to expose the claims of the CM and the BJP that their coalition had a majority — the votes polled in favour of my opponent have proved that this government is in a minority .The President should intervene and call a special session of the House,’’ he said.

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Clearly, a section of BJP MLAs other than those against whom the party has filed a petition for disqualification from the membership of the House voted against the party line. Taking all numbers into consideration, Yashwant Singh should have got 160 votes but he got 23 more.

The Chief Minister, of course, was unwilling to concede anything. ‘‘His victory will prove that we are in a majority and there was no point in raising the demand for calling a special session of the House,’’ she had told reporters in the morning after casting her vote.

In fact, leaders of the coalition had begun smiling the moment the Congress announced its decision to stay away from the election. ‘‘The Opposition has not propped up its candidate properly, forcing us to abstain from voting. All opposition parties should have been consulted for a joint offensive against the government; but in this case the opposition was disjointed, the advantage of which went to the government,’’ said Congress Legislature Party leader Pramod Tiwari.

But the opposition has already started mounting pressure on Mayawati, arguing that her government had lost majority. ‘‘The government should enjoy the the confidence of 202 MLAs in the House for a majority, but going by the number of votes polled in favour of the winner, there is no doubt that the Mayawati government is in a minority,’’ former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh told The Indian Express.

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The participation by the MLAs in today’s polling was almost total (except for the Congress) as all the jailed MLAs — Mukhtar Ansari, Atiq Ahmed, Dhananjay Singh, Madan Bhaiya, Raja Bhaiya — were brought to the assembly under heavy police escort. ‘‘The Mayawati government is persecuting the MLAs who have opposed her but we are not going to sit idle till this government collapses. Our campaign will continue irrespective of victory or defeat of our candidate,’’ said Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya.