Rediff Logo
Star News banner
News
Citibank banner Find/Feedback/Site Index
HOME | NEWS | ELECTIONS '98 | REPORT
March 9, 1998

NEWS
VIEWS
INTERVIEWS
CAMPAIGN TRAIL
ISSUES '98
MANIFESTOS
OVERHEARD
POLLING BOOTH
INDIA SPEAKS!
YEH HAI INDIA
CHAT
ELECTIONS '96

Laloo ready to push any 'secular' force to power

Former Bihar chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Laloo Prasad Yadav has said his party is prepared to extend unconditional support to any secular formation, including the United Front, in forming a government at the Centre.

He said the people's mandate, which clearly went to the secular forces and not to the Bharatiya Janata Party, has to be honoured at all cost.

The RJD supremo said if the Congress was dithering, then the United Front should come forward and elect its leader to whom 'we will offer unconditional support.'

He said the BJP and its allies neither have got the people's mandate nor have the requisite strength. ''(Therefore) the Congress has got all the legitimate right to form the government,'' Yadav said.

Regarding the participation of his party in any such secular government, he said it would depend on who becomes the prime minister.

In an oblique reference to Telugu Desam Party chief and UF convener Chandrababu Naidu's stand of maintaining equidistance from both the Congress and the BJP, Yadav said history would not forgive such people and they would be publicly exposed.

The nation's interest was foremost, it was over and above an individual's, he said.

Yadav, who has started hectic consultations with leaders of like-minded parties, would stay in Delhi till 'a government is formed'.

UNI

RELATED REPORT:
RJD will sit in Opposition if efforts to thwart BJP fail

Elections '98

Tell us what you think of this report

HOME | NEWS | BUSINESS | CRICKET | MOVIES | CHAT
INFOTECH | TRAVEL | LIFE/STYLE | FREEDOM | FEEDBACK