Congress-SP bad blood spills over again

Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh today let fly against a "sitting minister from the ruling party who is currently evaluating the secularism of textbooks" and "named as chairman of the Gandhi centenary celebrations, Atal Bihari Vajpayee" during his tenure as minister earlier.

Singh's target was also "a general secretary of a political party" who "believes we (Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav) are not political leaders but small-time politicians".

Singh's attack clearly indicated that the Samajwadi Party and the Congress were yet to bury the hatchet.

"We may be non-entities, but we are fighting against the BJP, not bowing before it. It is we, not you, who reduced the BJP's strength in Uttar Pradesh from 58 to 10. You concede defeat to the BJP, we defeat the BJP," he said. He, however, refused to name the Congress general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh.

Last week, Satyavrat Chaturvedi, the party general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh had criticised both Amar Singh and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh in Lucknow.

"Panditji, congratulations on becoming the party general secretary. But, may I remind you that your party was at number four in the state," Singh said.

He also said while Chaturvedi had sought a coordination committee between the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, "please ask your high command - we had offered you a place in the government".

Singh said though the Samajwadi Party was a member of the United Progressive Alliance, it was not consulted before major decisions like the hiking of sectoral foreign direct investment caps, reducing the Employees' Provident Fund rates, and raising petroleum prices.

Singh's diatribe indicates that despite Mulayam's statement in Lucknow last week that relations between the two parties were excellent, the Samajwadi Party would continue to be the Congress' most trenchant critic despite being its ally at the Centre.