| The long-awaited Allahabad High Court judgement on defection of 40 Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLAs to the Samajwadi Party (SP) has come both as a shock and reprieve. While BSP supremo Mayawati feels vindicated, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has managed to keep his Government intact-at least, for the time being. As the three-member Lucknow Bench of the High Court de-recognised the 2003 split in the BSP, the 30-month-old coalition Government formed with the support of the 40 defected MLAs felt the shock wave with Mayawati making subtle moves to win back the defectors. Four of the rebels, including Ministers of State Jaiveer Singh and Surendra Vikram Singh, and chairman of a board Dharampal Singh, met Governor T.V. Rajeswar and told him that in the light of the February 28 judgement they were going back to the BSP. The BSP also spread the word that 22 rebel MLAs were ready to return to it. Meanwhile, a Congress delegation, led by state party chief Salman Khurshid, met Rajeswar to demand that the defector-ministers be sacked. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mohammad Azam Khan saw the Congress' hand in the BSP's moves and alleged that the Congress was using Raj Bhavan to pull down the Government that had secured confidence vote soon after the High Court referred the defection issue to Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey to "take a fresh decision". In an expected move, the Speaker declared that the 40 MLAs would continue to occupy the seats allotted to them earlier in the Assembly, indicating that they were still part of the treasury benches. Pandey added that the court had not rejected their original application to form a group in September 2003 and that he would re-examine the case of defection, disqualification and merger. The BJP-whose state President Keshari Nath Tripathi as the then Speaker of the Assembly had recognised the formation of Loktantrik Bahujan Dal (LBD) by the defectors and validated its merger with the SP-was quick to demand imposition of President's rule and elections in Uttar Pradesh. The one man who stands to gain most from the verdict is Mulayam Singh's ally Choudhary Ajit Singh, the mercurial head of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). Ajit Singh had sent many a signal to Mulayam Singh that he was not happy with the Government. A day before the court verdict he even met Congress President Sonia Gandhi in Delhi. The 2-1 verdict was delivered on a petition filed by the BSP challenging the "manipulation and deceit" adopted by Mulayam Singh to break Mayawati's party to form the Government after her resignation as chief minister on August 26, 2003. While Chief Justice A.N. Ray dismissed the petition, the other two judges, Justice Jagdish Bhalla and Justice Pradeep Kang, quashed the recognition of the LBD and its merger with the SP. Justice Kang, concurring with Justice Bhalla, observed that the "defections strike at the root of the representative government and, hence, are unconstitutional, unethical and improper". The verdict put a question mark over the Government's fate as it ordered maintaining the status quo ante that existed before the breakaway group was formed on September 6, 2003. Mayawati said if the Government failed to realise its moral responsibility, the governor and the Centre must step in. The SP took it rather lightly. Party National General Secretary Amar Singh retorted that the Central Government too should have resigned after the Supreme Court verdict in the Bihar Assembly dissolution case. While trying to assert his strength through the confidence motion, Mulayam Singh, who enjoys majority with or without the defected MLAs, raised more political and constitutional questions than the motion could answer. Congress Legislature Party leader Pramod Tiwari said that by moving the motion Mulayam Singh had exposed "the hoax of his majority claim: he got the support of only 207 MLAs. If we exclude the 40 rebels then his strength was only 167 in the House of 402 members". According to Khurshid and Tiwari there was no justification for the confidence motion as it had no constitutional validity. The Mulayam Singh Government has the strength of 230 MLAs-the SP has 194 MLAs, including breakaway BSP MLAs, the RLD has 15, the CPI(M) two, the Loktantrik Congress two, the Akhil Bharatiya Congress one and 16 are independents. If the rebel MLAs are disqualified, which is unlikely, the strength of the House would be 362. That means for a simple majority the Government would need 181 MLAs, but if Ajit Singh withdraws support, the Government would be left with only 175 MLAs. While the Speaker may take his own time hearing the grievances of the parties and examining the earlier decision, Mulayam Singh is depending on the rebels' support. Nervous he may be, but the erstwhile wrestler does not give up so easily.
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SThe rebel group LBD splits and one faction returns to the BSP: The strength of the ruling coalition will be reduced but Mulayam Singh may survive as the defectors, who are ministers, are likely to stand by him.
