New Delhi: The sudden announcement of Assembly polls for Uttar Pradesh by the Election Commission has come as a bolt from the blue for the Congress, which had initiated an exercise aimed at dislodging the Mulayam Singh Yadav government by imposing President's rule in the wake of disqualification of 13 BSP MLAs by the Supreme Court last week.
Even the BJP had gone on record saying it wanted the UP polls to be conducted under President's rule.
Now the declaration of the poll schedule by EC has raised questions as to whether the Centre could still act on the Congress plans for invoking Article 356 of the Constitution.
Legal experts, however, said that option is still open before the UPA Government at the Centre. PTI quoted former attorney general Soli Sorabjee and K K Venugopal as saying that the announcement of poll schedule does not come in the way of any Centre's decision to impose President's rule in a state.
Sorabjee, however, feels such a decision will be improper and smacking of malafides.
Both said if the government felt that governance in a state could not be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, it can impose President's rule.
The Samajwadi Party leaders have rejoiced the EC decision. "The nefarious designs of the Congress has taken a beating," SP leader Amar Singh told CNN-IBN.
Asked about the urgency in announcing the poll schedule, Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalasway said: "As far as we are concerned, the clock of Constitutional mandate started ticking for us from Tuesday. We are 24 hours behind."
Earlier in the day, the Congress had termed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's demand for a floor test in the Assembly as a "meaningless eyewash", and called upon the Central Government to take all steps to prevent horse-trading.
"Any attempt to prove his majority is nothing but a license to subvert the democracy by bribing the MLAs to get their votes," Congress spokesperson Jayanti Natrajan said.
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