The Hindu : U.P. ruling coalition wins Council byelection

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 19, 2002

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U.P. ruling coalition wins Council byelection

By J.P. Shukla

LUCKNOW NOV. 18. The ruling BJP-BSP candidate, Munna Singh Chauhan, today scraped through in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council by-election by a margin of 11 votes, as 23 members of the Congress abstained from voting.

Mr. Chauhan polled 194 votes against 183 polled by Yashwant Singh of the Lok Janshakti Party who had the support of the Samajwadi Party and other Opposition groups, besides the BJP rebels.

Out of 403 members of the Assembly, 379 exercised their franchise. Two votes were found invalid.

The Congress, which had 24 members, recently expelled Akhilesh Singh following his involvement in a case of murder in Rae Bareli. While Mr. Singh came to cast his vote, the other 23 members of the party abstained, according to a decision taken by the CLP leader, Pramod Tiwari.

Atik Ahmed , an MLA belonging to the Apna Dal, also failed to cast his vote. Four MLAs — Raghuraj Pratap Singh, Dhananjay Singh and Mukhtar Ansari (all independents) and Vijay Kumar Mishra (Samajwadi Party) — were brought from different jails to participate in the polling.

As the ruling alliance candidate had polled only 194 votes — eight less than half of the total strength of the Assembly — the Opposition leaders promptly came to reiterate that the BSP-BJP alliance Government had been reduced to a minority and had lost the right to rule over the State. Mr. Yashwant Singh demanded that the Assembly be summoned without any more delay for a trial of strength on the floor of the House.

The BJP leader, Lalji Tandon, on the other hand, pooh-poohed the demand. He reminded that the Samajwadi Party leader, Amar Singh, had claimed before the Governor, Vishnu Kant Shastri, during his recent meeting with him, that there were 204 MLAs who supported his party.

According to Mr. Singh, the members of the Congress were not included in the list. "What has now happened to these 204 supporters of the SP?," Mr. Tandon asked.

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