Mulayam favours Congress-led government
Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav
today favoured a Congress-led government at the Centre and
dismissed speculation that the United Front was making oblique
bids to usurp power.
Talking to newspersons after the party's two-day national
executive comittee meeting, he said if the United Front was a
bigger combination than the Congress in the present hung Parliament,
it could have staked a claim to form a government.
Yadav asserted that the mandate was for a coalition
government, and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of creating an impression that it
had got a mandate, saying that the anti-BJP parties had more
MPs than the BJP and its allies.
He said the UF was not stopping the BJP from assuming
power. If the BJP had a simple majority, it should go to the
President and stake a claim rather than blaming the UF and the
Congress.
He made it clear that his party would try its best to
install a non-BJP government, saying the politicians who said
they would prefer to sit in the Opposition were indulging in
doublespeak.
"I do politics for power and those who do not admit the fact
are telling lies," he said.
Yadav said the SP would ensure that the UF remained
united on the crucial issue of government formation, adding
that the UF would not engineer defections in the BJP. Efforts would
be made to bring all the non-BJP parties together, he said.
It is the moral duty of the SP now to make the UF strong, Yadav
said, while expressing satisfaction at the party's performance in the
polls despite several odds it faced during the election.
Yadav said his party was of the view that days of non-
Congressism were over and all secular forces should prepare a time-
bound programme to fight communal and capitalist forces.
He favoured the constitution of a secular front to tackle the
current political, social and economic problems.
He said the SP would shortly launch a nationwide movement
to focus attention on some national issues, including patenting of
Basmati rice in America.
The SP would be strengthened in several states where the
party fought recent polls and lost seats by narrow margins.
A national convention of the party would be convened shortly
to discuss the strategy for the coming assembly poll in a few
states, the SP chief said.
UNI
Elections '98
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