As Congress leaders began to lay the ground for the dismissal of the Mulayam Singh government in Uttar Pradesh, fresh voices today joined the CPI(M) in opposing the imposition of President’s Rule. The DMK has not come out with any official statement so far, but party chief M. Karunanidhi expressed his opposition to President’s Rule to CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat in a telephone conversation, well-placed sources said.

Speaking to The Sunday Express, both the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the CPI made it clear that while they were totally against Mulayam Singh Yadav’s “misrule” and felt he ought to have resigned on “moral grounds” after the February 14 Supreme Court verdict, they did not favour President’s Rule.

NCP general secretary D P Tripathi, speaking on behalf of his party and its chief Sharad Pawar, said, “The Supreme Court judgment is a very serious one. It questions the constitutionality of the Mulayam Singh government. Therefore, on moral grounds, on the grounds of constitutional propriety, the chief minister should have resigned.”

However, on the question of President’s Rule, Tripathi said, “The floor of the House is the best place to prove one’s majority. Let the chief minister prove his strength on February 26. We do not support the imposition of President’s Rule.”

The CPI spoke on almost identical lines. Unlike the CPI(M), the CPI is part of the V.P.Singh-led Jana Morcha and has been actively campaigning against the Mulayam Singh government for a long time now. The Congress was, therefore, hopeful that it would go along with the party on the dismissal issue and Congress leader Ahmad Patel spoke to CPI leaders A.B. Bardhan and D. Raja today.

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