M A I N   N E W S

Mayawati gets House to approve 4-way split of UP
Resolution passed by voice vote; Assembly adjourned sine die
Shahira Naim/TNS

Lucknow, November 21
Getting the better of the Samajwadi Party’s resolve to introduce a no-confidence motion against the division of the state, the BSP today not only managed to pass the controversial resolution by voice vote but adjourned the winter session sine die after passing the vote. There was no debate on the resolution of far reaching consequences to divide the state into four parts.

Amidst loud protests and members of the SP and the BJP displaying banners criticising the government inside the House, Chief Minister Mayawati read out a two-line resolution recommending the reorganisation of the state into four parts - Purvanchal, Bundelkhand, Awadh Pradesh and Pashchim Pradesh.

Immediately after the resolution was passed, state Parliamentary Affairs Minister Lalji Verma, who had earlier introduced a supplementary budget, sought the vote on account to be moved and passed following which Speaker Sukhdeo Rajbhar adjourned the House sine die.

Earlier, soon after the House assembled this morning, BJP members rushed into the well of the House demanding a no-confidence motion against the government. When they did not return to their seats even after the Speaker’s request, the House was adjourned till 12.20 pm.

When the House reassembled, Leader of the House Mayawati was present. The Speaker rushed through the business of the day even as SP members continued demanding a no-confidence motion on the resolution.

Later realising that the House may be adjourned after seeing through the money bill and the resolution on the state’s division, SP members also joined the BJP members in the well of the House and some climbed the desks and threw paper balls at the Speaker.

After passing of the vote on account by voice vote, Verma said there was no ground for taking up a no-confidence motion against the government after the passing of a money bill.

The Speaker then adjourned the House sine die bringing to an end to possibly the shortest session of the House and by all accounts the last session of the 15th Vidhan Sabha.

Chief whip of SP Ambika Chadhury while decrying the “high handedness of the ruling party” said the BSP had made a mockery of democracy by the manner in which the resolution of the division of the bill was passed without a debate.

Now, the resolution to create the four new states will go to the Union Cabinet for clearance and the final motion will have to be passed by Parliament with 2/3rd majority in both the Houses.

Meanwhile, Mayawati hit out at the opposition parties for hatching a “political conspiracy” by declaring that the BSP had lost its majority in the Vidhan Sabha. Condemning their “anti-Dalit” mindset, she asked them why the same charge was not levelled against the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh.

She addressed the media immediately after the less than two-hour-long winter session of the House was adjourned.

Attacking the opposition parties for alleging that the resolution to reorganise UP into four states was a political stunt taken ahead of the 2012 state assembly elections, she said she had written a letter to the PM demanding the same way back in 2007 and then again in 2009. “When I received no response whatsoever from the Congress-led Union government, I was forced to get the proposal passed through my cabinet and a resolution in the Vidhan Sabha today, maintained Mayawati.