Faced with a serious threat from the BSP to further split the Congress Legislature Party, the Congress high command has dispatched 11 of its legislators from Uttar Pradesh as observers to Himachal Pradesh, ahead of the assembly polls there on February 26.

Fresh from the split in its 23 member legislature party in January and continued threats by Chief Minister Mayawati that many more Congress MLAs were in touch with her, the party decided to keep the legislators, including nine MLAs, away from the state till the beginning of the assembly session on February 28, sources said.

In January, seven Congress MLAs had defected to form a new party which later merged with the BSP in return for ministerial berths.

The decision to send the legislators to Himachal Pradesh has been taken to foil the attempts made by Mayawati to garner enough numbers of her own to face the assembly, party sources in Lucknow said.

She has been continuously sending signals to the opposition MLAs by keeping ministerial berths vacant, the sources added.