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Samajwadi Party to go it alone in polls

By Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi
January 28, 2004 20:56 IST

Samajwadi Party chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav on Wednesday said he would go it alone in the general election.

The SP will extend issue-based support to any "secular government" after the election, he said following a parliamentary board meeting of his outfit.

"Our main fight is against the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party]," Yadav said.

"The Bahujan Samaj Party and the BJP are the same" since the two had come to an electoral understanding on three occasions, he said.

He added that his outfit would put up candidates in Maharashtra, Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Delhi.

Yadav denied that Rashtriya Kranti Party chief Kalyan Singh had joined the BJP. "As far as I am concerned, the two RKP ministers are still in my government and the party is supporting me.

"I met him [Kalyan Singh] recently but he did not give any indication [that he had joined the BJP]," the CM said.

Yadav said Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had denied saying that UP was a lawless state. "The prime minister expressed surprise at this statement being attributed to him."

Asked whether the SP would eventually side with the BJP in the parliamentary polls, he said, "Aap mujhe rajnaitik gaali de rahe hain [you are politically abusing me]."

On his party stand on Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's 'foreign origins', he said the judiciary, which had said she was an Indian citizen, had settled the matter.

On the de-notification of the new districts created by his predecessor Mayawati, especially NOIDA, Yadav said he had done it keeping in mind everybody's interests.

He said farmers and lawyers had assured him that he had done the right thing and those who had protested against the de-notification mainly comprised the land mafia.

The main issue was development, he said, adding that the proposed gas-based project and housing projects in UP would bring in a combined investment of Rs 30,000 crore.

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

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