Mayawati says 37 MLAs disqualified

New Delhi: Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati's announcement that the Samajwadi Party has "misled the media" on the Supreme Court's judgement on the disqualification of MLAs puts Mulayam Singh Yadav in bad light.

Addressing a press conference at Lucknow, Mayawati said although the Samajwadi Party had announced that 13 of its MLAs stood disqualified after the SC's judgement, the truth was that all of the 37 MLAs of the BSP — who had broken away from the party and merged with the SP in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly in 2003 — had been disqualified.

Mayawati claims that the SC had admitted the writ petition filed by the BSP in Lucknow without any modifications, which means that all of the 37 MLAs who had broken off from the BSP in 2003 were disqualified.

The BSP spokesperson clarified that only way in which the apex court had segregated the 13 MLAs from the others was by pointing out that their disqualification came in effect from August 27, 2003. The rest of the 24 MLAs, however, stood disqualified from September 9, 2003.

The Samajwadi Party had on Wednesday said that 13 MLAs of the BSP had been disqualified on Wednesday and the case of the 24 other BSP MLAs, who had also defected, has been referred back to the state Speaker.

However, Mulayam did not seem perturbed by the political noises. "My government is safe and it is a pro-people government. No other government has done so much for the people in the past," he said.

While stating that he respected the SC verdict, he added,"I will not quit . We will prove ourselves in next Assembly elections."

In a state that has seen multiple defections over the past 10-15 years, Mulayam has played rather safe and the SC judgement may not have any impact on the stability of the government.

In fact, in a floor test on January 25, the Mulayam Singh government had mustered the support of 223 MLAs in the 402-member Assembly. This means, that even with the disqualifications, his government stands strong.

Soon after the apex court's decision, there was varied responses from the political parties. While the BJP called for President's rule in the state, BSP General Secretary Satish Chandra Mishra said that the Mulayam Singh government should resign immediately.