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Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow
With a hung assembly in Uttar Pradesh a near certainty, all political parties are keeping a tight leash on their flock of legislators.
As parties intensified efforts to reach the magic figure of 202 seats, fears of horse-trading loomed large.
"We have seen it happening in the past when Samajwadi Party tried to break the Bahujan Samajwadi Party and later when Bharatiya Janata Party succeeded in weaning away a chunk of BSP and Congress members to join a BJP-led coalition in 1997," a senior Congress leader said.
The fear of splits and defections was most blatantly visible in the Bahujan Samaj Party's headquarters and chief Mayawati's residence, both of which had been turned into a virtual fortress.
No one from the party was willing to talk about the election scenario.
"No one other than behenji (referring to Mayawati) is authorised to speak," is the flat reply that you get from the man guarding the impregnable high iron-gates.
However, Sone Lal Patel, president of Apna Dal, was willing to speak on this issue.
"My entire concentration now is on keeping my flock together as leaders of some parties are sitting like hawks to pounce on our MLAs," Patel admitted.
"But I have issued an open warning that we will not hesitate to use physical force to prevent this; a tooth for a tooth is my motto so we will neither spare those who try to engineer trouble as well as those who fall prey to allurements," he told rediff.com.
Patel made no bones about deputing one of his party leaders -- a dreaded criminal from Allahabad, who has umpteen cases of heinous crimes including murder pending against him -- with the task of keeping his flock together.
