Rebel Samajwadi Party MP Munnawar Hasan on Friday announced that he would defy the party whip and vote against the UPA government on July 22.
"I will defy the party whip and vote against the UPA government on nuclear deal during the confidence vote on July 22. I have support of around seven party MPs. The deal is anti-Muslim and we are against it more so because it is being promoted by the US, which is an anti-Muslim country," Hasan told reporters.
The Muzaffarnagar MP, who has been offered a ticket for the next general election by the BSP, said that he has not formally joined Mayawati but would do so after July 22.
"Once me and my other fellow MPs defy the SP whip, then we will join BSP," Hasan said.
He claimed that he was persistently being wooed by "various people" to vote in favour of the UPA government. "In fact on July 10, one Rupesh Kumar who identified himself as a
chartered accountant of a company, offered me a bribe of Rs 25 crore to vote in favour of the government," the MP claimed.
When asked as to why he did not register a complaint against the person or inform BSP supremo Mayawati about it, Munnawar said he found the media an appropriate outlet to disclose this information.
Though he avoided uttering anything against SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, Munnawar said the SP's Muslim votebank had "slipped" and many of its MPs, who did not turn up for the Parliamentary Party meeting held earlier today, were against the deal.
"In fact some Congress MPs too are in touch with me while SP MPs like Raj Narayan Budholiya and Jai Prakash Rawat are already with us," he claimed.
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