Governor, Ram Naik, might throw a spanner on the Samajwadi Party's move to strengthen its tally in the legislative Council by getting nine party leaders nominated to the Upper House later this month. The seats would fall vacant as nine BSP MlCs will retire this month. Interestingly, even after the term of these nine MlCs ends this month, the BSP would still enjoy majority in the House.
Sources said that the celebration in Samajwadi Party camp, which is eagerly waiting to send nine of the leaders to the State council by getting them nominated, could received a jolt if Governor Ram Naik takes his own time to clear the list sent to him by the SP. The Governor, reportedly, has right to take his own time to decide on the issue and there is no legal binding on him to fill the vacancy of nominated members before their retirement. "No, there is no legal binding to fill the vacancy caused in the council due to retirement of any nominated member", confirmed Principal Secretary of the legislative Council, Narendra Kumar Choubey. However, he refused to make any further comment on the issue.
Sources said that the BSP, which presently had 54 members in the Upper House, would be reduced to 45 after nine of his MlCs retire this month. The only cheer for the Samajwadi Party, who presently had 26 members in the House, is that if the Governor clears the list of the nominated MlCs, their tally would go up to 35 members, still ten short of what BSP has in the Council. However, with reduced margin, the Mayawati-led party will no longer enjoy full power in the legislative Council to block passage of Bills as with help of some other leaders the SP could get the crucial Bills cleared.
Presently, the Bills that could not be passed in the Assembly because of hurdles created by the BSP had to be referred to the Select Committee for a way-out. The BSP Members of legislative Council, whose term will expire this month, include Kamlakant Gautam, Vinay Shakya, Naushad Ali, Gopal Narain Mishra, Sudhir Goel, Ram Chandra Pradhan, Mangal Singh Saini, Meghraj Singh and Ml Tomar.
All the seats vacated will be in 'nominated' category and the SP would be able to ensure facile victory of its representatives from these seats, thanks to its strength in the lower House. The SP has 224 members in the 403-member Assembly. Besides the BSP and the SP, the BJP had seven members in the Council, the Congress has two, the Teachers' Group five and Independents four. One seat got vacant due to the resignation of Har Govind Singh.