Marching orders

IT’S the March fear that led Mulayam to move a confidence motion on February 25. The BSP MLAs walked out and he had no difficulty in winning the motion through a voice vote.

Meanwhile, Advocate General Virendra Bhatia is busy putting before him all legal possibilities. The legal battle may go beyond March 10 but Mulayam is now already armed with the ‘confidence motion’. The Opposition says “he can use this to dissolve the Assembly” (if he finds himself on weak legal ground) before March 10. This would entitle him to continue as a ‘caretaker’ government till fresh elections. This means that his government will help (of course under the Election Commission guidance) make arrangements for the elections.

THE 40 BSP MLAs, meanwhile, are putting up a nonchalant front. It was between August 27 and September 8, 2003, that they’d split from the BSP and helped Mulayam gain power. Mulayam returned the favour, making them ministers or heads of government bodies and cooperatives. Of these MLAs, only Amarmani Tripathi had to later resign from the cabinet since he was facing murder charges in the Madhumita Shukla case. The other MLA to quit voluntarily was Mohammad Bashir.

The rest have little time for remorse. Says Mehboob Ali, minister for state for minorities welfare: ‘‘The chief minister has kept his promise and has given something to everyone. Those not included in the first round, were taken in the second round.’’

IT was on January 6, 2005, that the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court admitted a writ against the 40 legislators under the anti-defection law. The writ was filed by the BSP Legislative Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya. Since then, the case has come up before the court at least six times.

The legislators are giving everyone some tense moments. On February 4, they failed to turn up in court to reply against the notices served on them. Says BSP’s legal advisor S C Mishra, ‘‘As no one appeared before the court with their replies, the case should now be decided ex parte.’’

The legislators’ absence gave the BSP some cause for cheer. But they celebrated a bit prematurely though. As the BSP decided to move ahead with an application requesting the court to decide the case in favour of the petitioner on February 8, the defectors MLAs’ legal expert came up with another twist to this winding story. He said they had never received the notices. The court has now demanded to know when and how these notices were served to the 40 MLAs.