SP formally extends support to UPA

Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh today gave a letter to President Pratibha Patil pledging support of his party to a Congress-led UPA government. "I have been authorised and directed by Mulayam Singh Yadav, national President and Leader of the Samajwadi Party, to offer our support for the formation of UPA government under the leadership of Manmohan Singh," Amar Singh said in the letter submitted to the President in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

SP has 24 MPs in the 15th Lok Sabha and claims the support of two independents.  Samajwadi Party could not finalise a pre-poll tie-up with Congress in Uttar Pradesh and contested as part of the Fourth Front. RJD and LJP were the other two parties of this front. Yadav had said yesterday in Mainpuri that his party was ready to sit in the opposition, however, Amar Singh told reporters later that SP would support the new government.

Asked whether Congress had sought his party's support or if SP was giving it on its own, Singh said, "When I and Mulayam Singh had gone to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a couple of days back, he had asked for our support. Yesterday also when the PM called me up, he sought our support."