Around 12 Samajwadi Party MPs skipped a meeting to finalise the party's strategy in the trial of strength convened by party brass Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh.
Amar, Mulayam brief Imam on N-deal
Kay Benedict. New Delhi
Driving big holes in the Congress claim on numbers on the eve of trust vote, around 12 Samajwadi Party MPs skipped a meeting to finalise the party's strategy in the trial of strength convened by party brass Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh here on Friday.
With many smaller parties and independents remaining elusive, the large scale abstaining from SP can upset UPA's precarious arithmetic.
The SP has 39 MPs in the Lok Sabha. Among those absent were three known rebels, two in jail, two suspended but pro-Congress, and one member who was on leave. This adds up to eight. With 17 MPs turning up, there remains a question mark on the remaining 14.
Both Yadav and Singh tried to downplay the absence of the members saying 12 of them could not attend the meeting due to various reasons. Undaunted, the party issued a three-line whip asking its members to be present in the Lok Sabha on July 21 and 22 to vote in favour of the government. However, one of the absentee MPs, Munnawar Hassan, said he would defy the whip and vote against the government. He claimed seven more MPs were with him.
Asked about the absentees, Amar Singh said that Ateeq Ahmad and Afzal Ansari were in jail, while Saleem Iqbal Shervani had a family wedding to attend.
Another MP, Usha Verma, could not come because of bereavement in her family. S Bangarappa, an MP from Shimoga in Karnataka too did not turn up.
Two others—Rajbabbar and Beni Prasad Verma—have been suspended from the party while Jai Prakash, Munawar Hassan and Rajnarayan Budholiya said they would not support the government.
“We are not bothered about these people leaving. We have managed much more people from major parties,” said Amar Singh. “Our strength at present is 280-plus. We want to take it to 290.”
Meanwhile, in their bid blunt the propaganda that the nuclear deal is anti-Muslim, the SP duo met the Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari.
“The Imam said that the deal could either be anti-India or pro-India and this is for the nuclear experts to decide. It cannot be pro or anti-Muslim,” sources close to the Imam said.
k_benedict@dnaindia.net
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