Poaching streak

Inspite of having a majority of 224 members in a house of 403, the  Samajwadi  Party in Uttar Pradesh is working to increase its strength in the state assembly. It has  begun to woo the smaller parties. Some feel that that the SP has not filled up the 15-odd  vacancies in the council of ministers for this very reason.. There are whispers that the SP  has been holding parleys with three of the four Peace Party legislators revolting against  their own leadership. The legislators include Akhilesh Singh (Rae Bareli), Kamal Yusuf  Malik (Dumariaganj) and Anis-ur-Rehman (Moradabad). The rebel MLAs plan to form a   splinter group and then merge into the SP. Peace Party president Dr Ayub has accused Mr  Mulayam Singh Yadav for the split.  In the state assembly, there are four parties with one  member each— Apna Dal (Anupriya Patel), National Congress Party (Fateh Bahadur  Singh), Ittehad-e-Millat Council (Shahzil Islam) and Trinamool Congress (Shyam Sundar  Sharma). The Qaumi Ekta Dal has two members— Sigbatullah Ansari and Mukhtar  Ansari, who won elections from inside the jail.