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On the eve of the by-election to a seat in the legislative council, the Mayawati government was on tenterhooks as some BJP MLAs stayed away from a meeting convened by senior minister Lalji Tandon at his residence on Sunday.
The BJP leadership was stumped when only 64 of the party's 88 MLAs turned up at the meeting convened by the legislature party leader.
The absence of 11 dissident MLAs, against whom proceedings under the anti-defection law had been initiated, was understandable. But what about the 13 others?
"Some of them were not in town and had conveyed their inability to be present at today's meeting," was Tandon explanation.
But the skeptics were proved right when senior BJP leader and Irrigation Minister Om Prakash Singh publicly declared his reasons for keeping away from the meeting.
"I have been systematically sidelined in favour of juniors. This is humiliating. So, I preferred to keep away from the meeting" he told mediapersons in Lucknow.
"I have conveyed my displeasure about the goings-on in Lucknow to the party's central leadership," he said.
It is believed that he is unhappy with Tandon, who is also being targeted by the BJP dissidents.
Mayawati had recently divested Om Prakash Singh of some departments in October while he was away on a foreign tour. Singh's comments would only add fuel to the discontent brewing in the party.
The Bahujan Samaj Party-Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal coalition government, which is supported by smaller parties and some independents, has been plagued by dissidence since the recent cabinet reshuffle with disgruntled BJP MLAs threatening to bring down the government with the help of the opposition Samajwadi Party.
The ruling party has fielded Munna Singh of the RLD for the council by-election. He is pitted against Yashwant Singh, who has managed to enlist the support of nearly the entire opposition.
In the 403-member state assembly, the SP has a strength of 142 MLAs, BSP 99, BJP 88, RLD 14, Congress 24, the rest being members of small parties and independents.
Apart from the Samajwadi Party's open support, Yashwant Singh is believed to enjoy the support of the dissidents in the BJP, BSP and the RLD. Besides, he is known to have cultivated several Congress MLAs.
However, opinion is divided in the Congress on supporting him.
Congress Legislature Party leader Pramod Tiwari has been claiming that the party would abstain during Monday's polling while state Congress president Arun Kumar Singh is all for supporting Yashwant Singh.
While abstaining would help the BJP, a Congress vote against the ruling coalition's nominee is likely to spell his doom, and possibly that of the Mayawati government.
Top leaders of all major parties are camping in Lucknow for what would have normally been an insignificant election.
Munna Singh's defeat would increase the pressure on Governor Vishnu Kant Shastri to give a patient hearing to the Samajwadi Party's demand that Chief Minister Mayawati prove her majority in the assembly.
That is what Mayawati fears most given the troubled state of her coalition.
"The poll will clearly reveal whether or not Mayawati enjoys majority support," state SP chief Ram Sharan Das said.
SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav is even believed to be contemplating parading his MLAs before President A P J Abdul Kalam in the event the official nominee loses the by-election.
EARLIER REPORT UP by-election: Ruling coalition eyes Congress legislators
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