125 pro-nitish mlas to meet kalam

More than 125 MLAs of the dissolved Bihar Assembly, including those from NDA, breakaway LJP and Independents, who were supporting formation of a government under Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar, are expected to parade before President A P J Abdul Kalam in Delhi on June 10.

"The programme is final and we have approached for appointment. Once we get the nod from Rashtrapati Bhawan, the MLAs would parade before the president to convince him that we had the required numbers to form the government. But the Centre on the basis of an unsubstantiated report of Bihar Governor Buta Singh conspired to dissolve the Assembly to deprive us of the opportunity," state NDA convenor Nand Kishore Yadav said.

"June 10 is the likely date but it might shift by a day or two depending when we get time from the president," Yadav said.

Breakaway LJP MLA Munna Shukla, who had played a prominent role when the rebel LJP MLAs had gone to Jharkhand to discuss formation of government under Kumar, Independent MLA from Sonebarsa and expelled LJP chief Narendra Singh confirmed the report.

Yadav said BJP President L K Advani and NDA convenor George Fernandes are likely to accompany the MLAs to the President.

There was some minor difference in the statement of these leaders as to how many MLAs would parade before the president, but all of them asserted it would not be less than 125, three more than the magic figure of 122 in the 243-member Assembly that was required to form the government.

Shukla gave the figure of 132 MLAs (NDA 92, breakaway LJP 23 and 17 Independents), Munna said 130, while Yadav put the number above 125.