Interestingly, both were from the Samajwadi Party, like Abu Asim Azmi who was at the receiving end of MNS MLAs in the Maharashtra House.

In Uttar Pradesh, members of both houses have to take oath in Hindi, as it is the official language. Rule 282 of the UP Legislative Assembly says, “Subject to the provisions of the Constitution, the business of the Assembly shall be transacted in Hindi language and Devnagari script.”

Although UP has a sizeable population of Muslims who speak Urdu, and Urdu has been recognised as the second official language after Hindi by an act of the legislature, the “Rules of procedure and conduct of business of the UP Assembly 1958” provide that the language of the House shall be Hindi in Devnagari script.

A controversy broke out soon after the 1996 Assembly elections when SP legislators Alam Badi and Wasim Ahmed, who represented Nizamabad and Gopalpur in Azamgarh district, demanded that they be administered the oath of membership in Urdu. Both also staged a dharna in front of the Assembly for several days in 1996 and 1997.

They contended that Urdu was recognised in Uttar Pradesh as the second official language and it was their constitutional right to be administered the oath of the membership of the House in the language of their choice.

The law making Urdu the second official language had been passed by the Narayan Dutt Tewari-led Congress government in 1988. Since the 1996 elections had thrown up a hung Assembly, in September that year, on the recommendations of the then Governor Romesh Bhandari, the Assembly was placed under suspended animation and the issue remained unresolved.

After nearly six months, on March 21, 1997, the BSP and the BJP formed a coalition government with Mayawati as the Chief Minister. A week later, Keshari Nath Tripathi of the BJP was elected Speaker.

The matter came up before the Speaker and he refused to accede to the demand of the SP MLAs. “I told both legislators that the language of the UP Assembly is Hindi and they will have to take oath in Hindi, and without taking oath they will not be able to attend the session of the assembly,” recalled Tripathi. “I also told them that if they remained absent from the House session for six months without assigning any reason, they ran the risk of being disqualified.”

Later, on the intervention of SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, both MLAs took oath of membership of the Assembly in Hindi, said Tripathi.