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Lucknow: The Mayawati government on Sunday recommended the dissolution of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, marking a deviation of the normal practice as it comes just two days before the counting of votes.

The decision to dissolve the Uttar Pradesh Assembly was taken by circulation, which is a practice adopted when most Cabinet ministers are absent and the Chief Minister has to take a decision.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati had held a meeting of her Cabinet on Sunday.
This comes a day after almost all the exit polls suggested a simple majority for the Samajwadi Party government and the ouster of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the state.

In what is most likely to be one of its biggest electoral victories in UP in the last 20 years, the SP is bound to surprise by garnering an impressive 34 per cent of the votes in the Assembly elections 2012, a CNN-IBN-The Week post-poll survey conducted by CSDS has shown. It said that a vote-share of 34 per cent for the SP would mean the party will steer clear of its rivals and remain ahead by an unprecedented 10 per cent of the total votes polled in UP.

In the four-cornered battle for UP, other parties are far behind the SP in terms of vote share. The survey said the BSP might have a vote share of 24 per cent as opposed to 30 per cent in 2007, BJP 14 per cent as opposed to 17 in 2007 and the Congress will finish at the fourth position with an estimated 12 per cent vote share compared to 13 per cent in 2007.

Interestingly, Rahul Gandhi, despite the Congress’ bad performance in the survey, remains a favourite with the voters. Thirty eight per cent of the voters surveyed said they had more faith in Rahul, as compared to the 21 per cent that said it trusted Akhilesh Yadav more.

Mulayam Singh Yadav was the top choice for the Chief Minister’s post with 34 per cent of the voters opting for the SP chief, as opposed to Mayawati (22 per cent) and Rahul Gandhi (8 per cent).

Despite the wave, only 2 per cent of the voters wanted Akhilesh as the CM of the state.