With nowhere to go before the Lok Sabha elections, the desperate Samajwadi Party (SP) leadership is trying to keep the doors open for every possible post-poll patch-up.
On the one hand SP managers are trying to rekindle the long-lost love between the two Yadavs — Lalu Prasad of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and their boss Mulayam Singh. But on the other, they are still sending feelers to the Congress leadership that the SP is ready for a post-poll tie-up to form a secular government.
“Our seat adjustments have collapsed. I would still like to tell the Congress: “Hum bane, tum bane ek duje ke liye (we are made for each other),” Amar Singh said today in his usual style.
Although Singh resorted to the superhit song of the 1980s from the film ‘Ek Duje ke Liye’, he perhaps forgot that at the climax of the picture the love-struck couple had to commit suicide!
Quashing the Left’s efforts to form a secular alternative government, Singh today doled out lavish praises for the Congress. “The only alternative to the Congress-led government can be a BJP-led government. If anyone wants to form a secular government, it is not possible without the Congress,” said Singh. But he was quick to add: “No secular government is possible without the SP as well.”
At the same time, the SP leadership today claimed that it had roped in Lalu Prasad to campaign for Mulayam Singh in UP. “This morning, I had a talk with Laluji. He said he would campaign for the SP even if we fielded candidates in Bihar.”
Many in the Congress camp feel that as the disproportionate assets cases against Mulayam are far from over, the SP wants to keep the top Congress leadership in good humour. Mulayam too declared today that even if Congress leaders hurled abuses against his party, it would not hit back.
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“We are not going to waste our energy by attacking the Congress. Our focus will remain on the unholy nexus between the BJP and the BSP,” Mulayam told reporters today.
Singh had earlier tried to knock at the Left’s doors but it did not help. The Left has decided to maintain a distance from the SP till the elections are over.