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.
