Mulayam: Keeping options open

March 28: The Samajwadi Party today rejected the Congress’ latest offer for electoral alliance, describing it as a “conspiracy” to blame it for the division in secular votes.

However, the Samajwadi said it was open to a post-poll pact.

“Now that the election bugle has been sounded and candidates have been declared, there is no point in having any kind of understanding in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls,” party general secretary Amar Singh told reporters.

“When we were urging the Congress for an alliance, it was running after the BSP and now after being spurned by the BSP, it is asking us to forge an understanding,” he added. The Samajwadi leader said the Congress had failed to unite secular forces in Uttar Pradesh and now wanted to “shift the blame”.

But the Congress tried to project the Samajwadi as playing spoilsport in its efforts to unite the secular forces in Uttar Pradesh and also in the prestigious Lucknow constituency by daring Mulayam Singh Yadav to come clean on fielding a strong, common Opposition candidate against Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Party spokesman Kapil Sibal asked the Samajwadi to convey its assessment whether its chosen Lucknow nominee, Madhu Gupta, was strong enough to give a tough fight to Vajpayee. In that case, the Congress could consider supporting Gupta as a common Opposition candidate. Otherwise, the Samajwadi should withdraw its nominee and support former Union minister Ram Jethmalani as a common Opposition candidate, he said.

But the Samajwadi refused, with Amar Singh saying: “Now that all the major parties have declared their candidates from the seat, there is no question of putting up a joint candidate against Vajpayee.”

He added: “The Congress’ best friend BSP already broke the backbone of the efforts to field a joint Opposition candidate by announcing its candidate.”

If the Opposition parties were serious on putting up a joint candidate against the Prime Minister, discussions should have taken place immediately after the polling process began, Amar Singh said.

Sibal’s public poser came within a day of Pranab Mukherjee’s open offer on Saturday to support Jethmalani as the common, Independent candidate of the Opposition against the Prime Minister.

The Samajwadi has ignored Mukherjee’s proposal. Amar Singh said his party was unable to understand whether it should attach any importance to Mukherjee’s statement or that of Arjun Singh. Arjun Singh had recently hinted at withdrawing the Congress’ outside support to the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led government in Uttar Pradesh.