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Mayawati government in trouble after
12 BJP MLAs withdraw support

The Bahujan Samaj Party-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance government in Uttar Pradesh was embroiled in a major crisis with 12 BJP dissident MLAs announcing withdrawal of support to Chief Minister Mayawati.

Mayawati, who heads the BSP which enjoys widespread support among dalits in UP, appears to have lost the first round in the numbers game.

Earlier in the day, former BJP president Kushabhau Thakre had arrived in Lucknow on a damage control exercise.

After deliberations, one of the dissidents Kovid Kumar Singh was suspended from the party. He is the third dissident to face this action after Ganga Bhakt Singh and Ramasheesh Rai, office bearers of the 'BJP Bachao Committee' set up by the dissidents.

This resulted in Kovid Kumar Singh calling on Governor Vishnukant Shastri with 11 other BJP MLAs and eight independents.

"We handed over a memorandum expressing lack of confidence in the Mayawati-led coalition government," Kovid Kumar Singh told mediapersons outside the governor's residence.

Signatories to the 'no-confidence' memorandum are Kovid Kumar Singh, Ravindra Singh Pundeer, Narendra Singh Sisodia, Chandra Manikant Singh, Ram Pratap Singh, Puran Singh Bundela, Suresh Kumar Singh, Mayankeshwar Singh, Ganga Baksh Singh, Indra Dev Singh, Anil Paswan and Daya Shankar Verma.

"We have urged the governor to convene a session of the state assembly where the chief minister be asked to prove her majority," Singh said.

"As per the governor's own version, following last week's withdrawal of support by some independent legislators, the strength of the coalition had come down to 210 in the 403-member state assembly. With the latest development, the government has been reduced to a minority with 198 MLAs."

The governor was not immediately available for comment. However, a spokesman in his office said, "The governor is holding consultations with legal and constitutional experts. He will make a statement after he has formed a view on the basis of this advice."

Assembly Speaker Kesrinath Tripathi, who returned from an overseas tour on Thursday, also could not be contacted and was believed to be holding consultations with the chief minister.

Dissidence struck the BJP unit shortly after Mayawati expanded her five-month old cabinet earlier in October. Several unsuccessful aspirants, belonging to the BJP as well as some independents supporting the government, openly expressed their anger against the party.

Thursday was a dull day till Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav arrived in Lucknow.

For the past one week, he has been desperately trying to split the BJP by encouraging the dissidents.

In the evening, he had invited independent MLAs to his residence for a closed-door meeting.

More reports from Uttar Pradesh

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