Congress must shed its arrogance: Amar

Within weeks of open criticism by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) ally, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), today it was the turn of the Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Amar Singh to lash out at the Congress in his inimitable style.

He demanded that the Samajwadi Party, which was supporting the UPA government from the outside with 40 MPs, be given a "definite say" and the Congress drop its "arrogance".

But Singh said he was not implying that the Samajwadi Party would withdraw support to the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre or break the alliance in Uttar Pradesh - that would not happen so long as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was on the scene. He also said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "has not given any personal cause for us to take a hard-line stand".

"We would like to have a definite and firm say in the running of the UPA. I think it is our due. But it is because of the Congress' arrogance not to accept our support that we decided at our Jhansi meet that we will not be going after them with a begging bowl. If we are needed, we will be there," he said. He said the Samajwadi Party was not seeking ministerial berth.

Asked about his assessment of the running of the government at the Centre, Singh said it was a "functioning chaos" and cited the spat between two ministers ""Lalu Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan ""with both calling each other crane chor and chara chor.

"Is it not the best example of functioning chaos? Both ministers call each other names, which is reported by the media, and next day both of them say they have been misreported," Singh said.

Asked if it was not a dichotomy on the part of the Samajwadi Party to support the Congress and also attack it, he said "there is no dichotomy. The survival of our governments is not in each other's hands. Yet our respective parties are supporting each other and we will continue to keep this facade till we face the threat to secularism from the BJP. The threat is still there."

He cited the example of Left parties supporting the central government but criticising "each move and policy" of the government.

"By humiliating and insulting the SP, the Congress is not going to gain anything. It is our spectacular perfor-mance that reduced the BJP from 58 to 10 seats in UP and the leading lights of the BJP like MM Joshi, Vinay Katiyar and Swami Chinmaya-nand were defeated," he said.

"Sonia Gandhi relinqu-ishing prime ministership and her coronation to sainthood would not have taken place but for the SP's performance in UP," he claimed.

Asked about the UP Congress' demand to the party high command for withdrawal of its support to the Mulayam Singh Yadav government, Singh said "it is hypothetical. The question does not arise, especially not on the grounds of law and order cited by the Congress".

Accusing the Congress of making common cause with the BJP and the BSP against the Samajwadi Party, he said "there is a common minimum programme among them to eliminate the SP. It is because of this negative strategy that the Congress and the BJP are transferring their votes to the BSP".

He said the media always made doomsday predictions about the SP and did not write about the scale of victory because it had been proved wrong.

That was why the party had to release paid advertisements in the media on the victory, he added.

Asked about the party's strategy in the Assembly elections in Bihar, Singh said it would wait and watch the moves of Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) and Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janashakti Party. If they severed ties with the BJP, the Samajwadi Party might consider aligning with them, he added.