Maya’s fresh blow: Apna Dal ditches SP over POTA

‘‘We have decided to walk alone because the bid to form a conglomerate of backward castes involving the Apna dal, Rashtriya Kranti Party of Kalyan Singh and the Samajwadi Party has failed. We will neither vote against nor in favour of the Mayawati government in the House in the case of a trust vote,’’ said Sonelal Patel, president of the Apna Dal, which has a strength of three MLAs.

‘‘It’s surprising that the very people who framed POTA (the BJP) are now opposing it when the Mayawati government has invoked it against Raghuraj and his father. One reaps what one sows,’’ said Patel. The Apna Dal’s decision has taken everyone quite by surprise since the party was known to be close to the SP.

A BJP minister in the Mayawati government, meanwhile, today came out publicly for the first time against the imposition of POTA on Raja Bhaiyya and his father. Minister of State for Technical Education Amita Singh said in Jhansi that the decision to invoke POTA was ‘‘unjustified’’. ‘‘They (Bhaiyya and his father) are neither terrorists nor anti-nationals,’’ she said.

Amita, who represents Amethi in the state Assembly, had earlier crossed swords with Mayawati when she was ‘‘ignored’’ by the CM during the recent ‘Savdhaan rally’ in Amethi.

With the state government most likely to be forced to convene an Assembly session before March 6, the Chief Minister is not leaving anything to chance. Sources in the BSP said that efforts were being made to win the support of more Independent MLAs and other smaller outfits ‘‘so that the government does not face any kind of embarrassment on the floor of the House.’’

The Apna Dal’s latest decision has given the BSP the much-needed boost and Mayawati, by engineering a split in the Congress fold yesterday, has sent out strong signals that she might not need to depend on the rebels in the BJP in the case of a trust vote.