Industrialist brokering SP, BSP tie-up?

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha on Monday claimed that arch rivals Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party could come together after the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Addressing media persons in Varanasi, Sinha claimed that an industrialist was working out a deal between the two, but refused to identify him. Sinha said he was making the assertion on the basis of information from unidentified 'sources.'

Sinha said Mayawati has deliberately rebutted her statements that SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and his lieutenant Amar Singh will be arrested in the event of her return to power.

He said the BSP leader had 'changed her tune' at the instance of the industrialist who was trying to sort out differences between them.

Referring to the prospects of the BJP in the ongoing UP elections, Sinha claimed the saffron party would get a clear majority in the state and in the worst situation, may fall short of the majority by few seats as a strong undercurrent was prevailing in favour of the party.

The senior BJP leader said his party will form the government only in the case of getting a clear majority along with the allies and at the most with the independents, but ruled out a post-poll tie-up with either the SP or BSP.

Sinha described as a mistake the party's decision to form a government in the state after the 2002 assembly polls in a post-poll alliance with the BSP and said the party leadership had admitted so and made its position clear that no post-poll alliance with the BSP will be made.

Sinha alleged that the United Progressive Alliance government lacked communication among the senior ministers on key economic issues and policies and that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was 'unable to intervene to end the squabbling among the ministers.'

Sinha, who had also held the foreign ministry during the NDA government, expressed his scepticism at the Indo-US nuclear deal and said that New Delhi had 'mortgaged its status as a nuclear power by agreeing to various restrictive clauses in the agreement' between the two countries on the issue.