'Congress lacks guts and numbers'

The confrontation between the Samajwadi Party and the Congress worsened today with the former daring the ruling party at the Centre to bring down its government in Uttar Pradesh.

"Unki (Congress) aukat nahi ki woh hamari sarkar giraye aur na hi sankhya hai (they have neither the guts nor the numbers to bring down our government)," SP general secretaries Amar Singh and Ram Gopal Yadav told reporters in New Delhi.

The offensive came a day after Congress president Sonia Gandhi, picking up from her son Rahul Gandhi's attack
on the Mulayam Singh Yadav government, accused it of "failing" to combat crime in her Lok Sabha constituency, Rae Bareli.

Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil had also referred to a "lot of complaints" about the law and order situation in the
state.

Objecting to Patil's statement, Singh and Yadav were also critical of Union Minister of State for Home Sri Prakash
Jaiswal calling up the UP chief secretary and the director general of polic about the law and order situation without the matter being discussed with the chief minister.

Accusing the Congress of behaving "arrogantly" and its ministers of destroying the country's federal structure, they
said merely by securing 145 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, the Congress was acting as if it was on cloud nine.

The two general secretaries also warned the Congress that the Samajwadi Party's silence should not be construed as its weakness. "Our party has acepted the gauntlet thrown down by the Congress and directs our workers to prepare for a fight against the puppet government in Delhi," the SP leaders said.

Dismissing the Congress' criticism of the UP government, Singh and Yadav said the Congress leaders had "lost their mental balance" as they have become "panicky" in view of the vast welfare works undertaken by the state in the areas of power, water, education and health.

The Samajwadi Party leaders alleged the Congress' "anti-backward class policies" over the years have resulted in
the sorry plight of backward castes, whose condition was now worse than that of the Dalits.

In a frontal attack on the United Progressive Alliance government, the SP leaders said it has failed to take a single decision aimed at the welfare of the people.

On External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh's recent statement on the issue of sending troops to Iraq, they said, "This gives a clear hint that this government was more submissive than even the previous National Democratic Alliance government."

Asked whether the SP was thinking of withdrawing support to the Manmohan Singh government, Singh said, "We will decide when the time comes."

To a question on the SP's strategy in case there was a Congress-sponsored threat to the state government, Singh said,
"We will retaliate with more vehemence than the party would have imagined."

Asked if the Samajwadi Party had accepted an offer of support in Uttar Pradesh from NDA convenor George Fernandes, Singh said the Janata Dal-United leader spoke on matters of principle when he drew a simile between Iraq and Uttar Pradesh where the Centre was behaving like the US.

He also referred to reported remarks by Marxist leader Prakash Karat taking strong exception to the Congress-led government's behaviour against the UP government.

The SP leaders pointed out that despite high-profile campaigning by Gandhi scions Rahul and Priyanka, the Congress' vote share had actually dipped by three per cent in the recent parliamentary election.

Singh and Yadav said if the SP had not contributed to the Bharatiya Janata Party's defeat in Uttar Pradesh, a Congress-led government at the Centre could not have been a reality.

There would have been no occasion for party president Sonia Gandhi to "become a saint" and Manmohan Singh assuming the top office, they said.

The two leaders also stressed that their alliance with the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal was intact and he had been
consulted while finalising the list of Rajya Sabha nominees.