Cross voting in presidential poll worries BJP

BHOPAL: With 18 ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs in Madhya Pradesh staying away from a meet to discuss the presidential polls, the party is worried that some of its members may vote for rival United Progressive Alliance's (UPA) candidate Pratibha Patil.

The BJP is contemplating issuing notices to the legislators who remained absent from the Tuesday night meeting at the chief ministers house.

"Those MLAs who didn't attend such a crucial meet will be asked to explain the reason behind their absence," Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is believed to have told party leaders after the meet.

The state's main opposition Congress, which leads the UPA, has been claiming that it has several BJP MLAs in its kitty as far as Thursday's presidential polls go.

The Congress has, at the behest of Patil, constituted a separate group of three leaders, including former MLA Virendra Singh Sisodia, state party spokesman Brij Mohan Srivastava and another senior leader, captain Jaipal Singh, to harness non-Congress votes in favour of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) candidate.

Sisodia who hails from the Ujjain temple town also happens to be a close relative of the UPA candidate by virtue of his sister being married to Patil's brother.

Patil, party sources said, summoned Sisodia and Shrivastava in Delhi recently and asked them to cultivate the votes of non-Congress votes. It is at the behest of these Congress leaders that at least four legislators of ruling BJP met Patil in Delhi.

"The above leaders, considered close to Madhya Pradesh Congress president Subhash Yadav, are toiling hard to get extra votes for UPA candidate also because their success would help raise the graph of Yadav with the national leadership and help him continue with the present office", a party source claimed. 

A senior BJP leader on condition of anonymity told IANS: "Yadav will once again emerge as a stronger Congress leader from the state if his supporters manage to get the votes of at least six or seven legislators from the BJP besides the non-BJP and non-Congress MLAs - something that cannot be totally ruled out."

The ruling BJP holds 169 seats in the 230-member assembly. However, the strength of the house at present is 228, as two seats are lying vacant due to the deaths of two MLAs.

Of the 169 BJP members, five owing allegiance to the Bharatiya Janshakti Party of Uma Bharati, stand suspended. The Congress has 40 members. Others include seven of the Samajwadi Party, three of the Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP), two each from the BSP and the Rashtriya Samanta Dal, one each from the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Janata Dal (United), and two independents.

Among MPs, the BJP has 24 of the 29 Lok Sabha members from the state while the Congress has four. With Khargone BJP MP Krishna Murari being disqualified recently, the party has lost one seat. Similarly, the BJP holds eight of the 11 Rajya Sabha seats from the state, while the Congress has three seats.