NEW DELHI, 9 July 2003 — Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party has decided to go it alone in the forthcoming Assembly polls in four states, while keeping open its options of coming to an understanding with secular parties in its fight against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The decision was taken at a meeting of the party’s national executive. Party general secretary and spokesman Amar Singh said yesterday efforts were being made to expand the party base beyond Uttar Pradesh and ensure that the BJP loses its grip over the electorate.
Barring Mizoram, the party plans to contest the Assembly polls in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. “We have relegated the BJP to third place in UP and now we want to bring its position down in other states too,” Singh said.
On the party’s approach toward Congress, he said that as of now the latter had not made any offer. Congress President Sonia Gandhi hinted at the possibility of a broader understanding among the secular parties despite the party contesting the Chiraigoan Assembly by-election in Uttar Pradesh last month against the BSP-BJP combine and the SP. “If Congress had the compulsion to contest Chiraigoan, we too have compulsions (to contest the coming assembly polls on our own).”
The SP was open to talks with all secular parties and Congress was one of them, Mulayam said.
He said his party would always fight communalism. On the issue of troops to Iraq, he said the unanimous resolution adopted by Parliament was a result of a consensus and any other move would be “anti-national.”
Singh described the acquittal of the accused in the Best Bakery case as “shameful” and criticized the Gujarat government for not appealing against it.
Meanwhile, the president of the Rashtriya Lok Dal and former Union Minister for Agriculture Ajit Singh has expressed confidence that the four-party combine, including the Samajwadi Party, would succeed in its bid to form a government in Uttar Pradesh.
He said the combine would oust the present BSP-BJP government during the next legislature session. Ajit Singh said political compulsion and common interest had prompted the four parties — Congress, the RLD, the Kranti Dal of the former UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh and the Samajwadi Party — to come together.
