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SP, BSP at each other’s throat

Photo: Subir Roy

Counter-charges: Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh, along with his son and party MP, Akhilesh Yadav, after a press conference in Lucknow on Wednesday.

LUCKNOW: Six days from the crucial July 22 trial of strength in the Lok Sabha, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party stepped up the offensive on Wednesday with both accusing each other of horse-trading and threatening rival Members of Parliament. The two main protagonists have the maximum stake from Uttar Pradesh in the impending showdown in the Lok Sabha.

While the Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh accused the Mayawati Government of threatening his party MPs and executing its game plan through the Director-General of Police, the ADG (Law and Order) and officials of the Chief Minister’s Office, the BSP State unit president, Swami Prasad Maurya, denied that his party was poaching Samajwadi MPs. He said the Samajwadi Party was indulging in horse-trading.

Mr. Maurya said the other MPs were welcome to the BSP fold only after resigning their Lok Sabha seats following which they would be re-nominated as party candidates.

Expressing confidence in the UPA Government winning the trial of strength, the Samajwadi chief told reporters here that the country’s scenario would change after July 22. Mr. Singh reiterated that the SP’s support to the UPA Government on the nuclear deal was in national interest and also to prevent communal forces from coming to power at the Centre. Mr. Singh ruled out the possibility of him, or other SP leaders, joining the UPA Government.

The former Chief Minister alleged that the Government had struck a deal with MPs lodged in jails with the assurance that cases against them would be withdrawn. He alleged that crores of rupees had changed hands in the process. Though the SP president did not name the MPs, the reference was to SP MPs Atiq Ahmed and Afzal Ansari and the BSP MP Uma Kant Yadav.

Mr. Singh said even his party MLAs were being subjected to murderous attacks and implicated in false cases allegedly by BSP workers. He said the recent attacks on SP MLAs Chandra Bhadra Singh, Irfan Solanki and Dharmendra Kashyap reinforced his charge that the ruling party and the Government wanted to suppress the SP workers.

Addressing a separate press conference, Mr. Maurya, who is the Cooperatives Minister in the Mayawati Cabinet, refuted SP general secretary Amar Singh’s allegations that some SP MPs had been offered Rs.30 crore by the BSP for switching loyalties. He accused Mr. Amar Singh and Mr. Mulayam Singh of being capable of buying any MP.

The BSP leader assailed Mr. Amar Singh for producing the SP MP from Pratapgarh, Akshay Pratap Singh, before the media in Delhi on Tuesday. (The MP had alleged that the ruling party had threatened to settle him if he voted for the UPA Government. Later, a written complaint was given to the Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee).

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