Union Cabinet hold emergency meets, mulls President's Rule in Uttarakhand

New Delhi: In a late night emergency meet of the Union Cabinet in Delhi, the political crisis in Uttarakhand was discussed in detail but the decision to impose President's Rule in the state was not taken.

The Cabinet, which met at 7RCR, the residence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, finally left it for Sunday to decide on whether to impose President's Rule in Uttarakhand or not.

Earlier in the day, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat approached Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal to get the nine rebel Congress MLAs disqualified under the anti-defection law, while a BJP delegation took the political battle to the President's office.

The BJP delegation led by senior party leader Kailash Vijayavargiya told the President that Rawat had no right to continue in office after sting operation allegedly showed him bargaining with the rebels for their support.

BJP's memorandum to the President also criticised Governor KK Paul for giving 10 days time to Rawat to prove his majority.

"Such a long time has given an opportunity to the chief minister to indulge in illegal, unconstitutional practices including horse trading to convert a minority into majority," it said.

Rawat said the sting released by the rebel MLAs was fake and quickly moved the Speaker's office to get them suspended.

Uttarakhand Assembly has an effective strength of 70 MLAs excluding a nominated member who does not have voting rights. With nine of its MLAs aligning with BJP, Congress is left with only 27 members of its own besides six members of PDF who are backing Harish Rawat government.

BJP, on the other hand, has 28 MLAs including Bhim Lal Arya whose loyalty is 'questionable'. Though he won on a BJP ticket, Arya has been suspended for openly speaking out against the party.

If the Speaker disqualifies the nine rebels the effective strength of the House will be reduced to 61 and the mark for a simple majority will be 31.

This is likely to make Rawat's task easier as he has a total of 33 MLAs - Congress's 27 and PDF's six.

However, BJP said Rawat could not even take PDF's support for granted as its constituents were mostly "independent entities" who did not have to prove their loyalty to a political party.