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Congress upset over Mulayam ways

By J P Shukla

LUCKNOW OCT.27. The Congress, which had played an active role in the installation of the Mulayam Singh Yadav Government in Uttar Pradesh after the fall of the Mayawati-led BJP-BSP alliance in August this year, is feeling offended at the political mannerisms of the Chief Minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav. The Samajwadi Party leader refused to extend his unqualified support to the claim of Prime Ministership for the Congress leader Sonia Gandhi after the next Lok Sabha elections. The Congress in return refused his invitation to join the State Government. The leaders of the two parties have now exchanged more unsavoury words questioning each other's secular credentials.

In one of his latest interviews, Mr Yadav was reported to have stated that the Congress had followed the path of secularism only till the time of the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi. Mr Yadav was apparently responding to remarks by Senior Congress leader, Arjun Singh, that Mulayam Singh's secular credentials were under examination by his party. Some Congress leaders had also expressed the view that the Chief Minister had shown undue softness to Vishwa Hindu Parishad during its recent build-up at Ayodhya.

The UP Congress spokeperson, Akhilesh Singh, today retorted that his party needed no certificate from Mr Yadav to prove its secular credentials. He could only pity anyone making such statement about the Congress, he said.

State Congress leaders have publicly disapproved of certain policy decisions taken by the Mulayam Singh Yadav Government. They objected to the State Government's decision to lease out 24 State-owned sugar mills to private parties and questioned the efficacy of the Government decision to form the State Development Council with some chosen industrialists as its members. The Congress has been urging the Chief Minister to forge a common minimum programme to run the affairs of the State Government to which Mr Yadav has made no positive response.

Political developments since the installation of the Samajwadi Party-led Government have discouraged the two parties from continuing their closeness .The numerical strength of the Samajwadi Party in the Assembly now has increased to an extent that it no longer needs the support of the Congress for the functioning of its Government.

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