Samajwadi Party Rules Out Ties With Cong

The talks about the Samajwadi Party (SP) joining hands with the Congress to form a government at the Centre is unfounded, according to senior SP leaders.

They said yesterday that party president Mulayam Singh Yadav would not risk his political career for the sake of short-term gains.

All along, Yadav has adhered to the ideology of Ram Manohar Lohia. And anti-Congressism is the very basis of Lohiaism, an SP functionary close to Yadav said.

Yadav recently had a meeting with Congress president Sitaram Kesari and asked him to support his bid to form a secular government in Uttar Pradesh.

SP sources, however, said that Kesari had not taken a decision with regard to the Congress ties with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) after the latters flirtations with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Kesari and Yadav have been close to each other for a long time. In fact, prior to the 1993 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Kesari had talked about strengthening Yadavs hands. But, nothing political should be attached to the meeting, another SP functionary said.

He ruled out the possibility of the SP joining hands with the Congress in case the latter withdraws its support to the United Front (UF) government.

How will Yadav convince his Muslim voters who are sore with the Congress after the demolition of Babri Masjid, he argued.

He said that the Muslims and backwards were the two pillars of the SP and Yadav could ill afford to alienate any of them by joining hands with the Congress.

Besides, what will the SP gain if it decides to join hands with the Congress. As it is, it is one of the dominant forces in the UF. Four of its members are in the Union Cabinet. What more can one expect, the leader asked.

Meanwhile, the SP has launched a month-long orientation camps at division levels to train its workers about the tenets of Lohiaism.

There is a need to train the workers about the partys ideological positions on contemporary events. It is an exercise in that direction, Samajvadi Partys propaganda secretary Amitabh Aadhar said.

Important party functionaries will visit divisional headquarters to keep the party abreast of the functioning of the UF government.