Lucknow: Four days ahead of the confidence vote to be sought by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, the BSP (Bahujan samaj Party) on September 4 filed a petition before the Assembly Speaker seeking disqualification of 13 of its MLAs who extended support to Yadav to form the government.

The petition, filed by BSP legislature party leader Swami Prasad Maurya, appealed to Speaker Kesari Nath Tripathi that a decision on the fate of the 13 MLAs be taken before September 8, when Yadav is scheduled to seek the confidence vote of the House. "They should be debarred from taking part in voting."

"By their conduct, these MLAs have proved that they no longer want to be part of the BSP and therefore, they should be disqualified," Maurya said in the petition submitted to Speaker's Principal Secretary R P Pandey.

Later, Maurya told reporters that the BSP legislature party had sought copies of the letters of support in favour of Yadav given by a section of party legislators to Governor Vishnu Kant Shastri.

"We wrote twice to the Governor's secretariat but we were asked to take the letters from the Assembly Speaker," he said. "We were told that the Governor could hand over copy of the letter to us only on the directives of a court."

Pandey said a decision on the petition would be taken soon.

At least 13 BSP legislators had met the Governor in two batches and had handed over letters urging him to invite Yadav to form the government.

PTI