UP Polls: Mayawati dissolves House, what will UP Guv do?

In a seemingly well-calculated move, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Sunday recommended dissolution of the state Assembly. The BSP chief presided over what could be the last Cabinet meeting on Sunday night and got the order passed by the Cabinet seeking the dissolution of the House, a decision taken just two days before counting.

The recommendation will be sent to the Governor on March 6 once counting is over. This comes a day after almost all the exit polls suggested that the Samajwadi Party (SP) would emerge as the single largest party and that the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) would be ousted.

In a likely scenario, if the Governor of Uttar Pradesh accepts the Cabinet's recommendation, he could either ask Mayawati to continue as Chief Minister till new assembly is constituted or he could recommend President's Rule till the new assembly is formed even before votes are counted. If President's Rule is imposed and no party gets an absolute majority, the Governor is under no obligation to call anyone to form the government till any one party can prove its majority.

Meanwhile, the congress is speaking in different voices after exit polls which gave a thumbs up to the Samajwadi Party. Union minister Beni Prasad Verma said that the BSP would be a better ally than the Samajwadi party. "We are going to tie up with BSP rather than SP. SP is a party of goons, whereas BSP works for dalits. Dalits are better than goons," he said.

But state Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi rejected his statement. "As per our view on Mayawati's governance, it has always been very clear. We have known about her bad governance. At the end of the day, our High Command will take the final decision. Mr Verma's remarks are his personal opinion," she said.

In what is most likely to be one of its biggest electoral victories in UP in the last 20 years, the SP is bound to surprise by garnering an impressive 34 per cent of the votes in the Assembly elections 2012, a CNN-IBN-The Week post-poll survey conducted by CSDS has shown. It said that a vote-share of 34% for the SP would mean the party will steer clear of its rivals and remain ahead by an unprecedented 10% of the total votes polled in UP.

In the four-cornered battle for UP, other parties are far behind the SP in terms of vote share. The survey said the BSP might have a vote share of 24% as opposed to 30% in 2007, BJP 14% as opposed to 17 in 2007 and the Congress will finish at the fourth position with an estimated 12% vote share compared to 13% in 2007.

Interestingly, Rahul Gandhi, despite the Congress' bad performance in the survey, remains a favourite with the voters. Thirty eight per cent of the voters surveyed said they had more faith in Rahul, as compared to the 21% that said it trusted Akhilesh Yadav more.

Mulayam Singh Yadav was the top choice for the Chief Minister's post with 34% of the voters opting for the SP chief, as opposed to Mayawati (22%) and Rahul Gandhi (8%).

Despite the wave, only 2% of the voters wanted Akhilesh as the CM of the state.