With Mayawati accusing him of "sabotaging" a BSP-Congress alliance, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Wednesday attempted to do damage control, saying he respected the BSP supremo and will be happy if such an alliance materialised.
"I respect her (Mayawati). We will be very happy if we have an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party. At the national level, I have always supported the idea that all parties opposed to the BJP-RSS ideology should come together to defeat them," Singh told a TV channel.
Singh's remarks came soon after Mayawati, in yet another blow to the Congress, ruled out any alliance with the Congress for the coming Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls.
Calling him an agent of the RSS-BJP, Mayawati accused him of sabotaging a Congress-BSP alliance.
She also dismissed Digvijaya's claims that she was under a "lot of pressure from the Centre because of which she does not want an alliance with the Congress".
Asked if his statement on Mayawati triggered her latest snub, Singh said: "Nationally, central agencies have been let loose to suppress the voices of every political party or person who is not with the BJP or has criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi or his government."
Singh, a former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, also sought to deny Mayawati's accusation of sabotage.
He pointed out that the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister had earlier made her intentions clear by announcing an electoral pact with Ajit Jogi's Janta Congress for the Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh.
"When Mayawati addressed a press conference with Jogi (September 20), she categorically said that she will not align with the Congress and went ahead to declare her party's alliance with Jogi and even announced that her party would contest 22 seats in Madhya Pradesh unilaterally," he said.
--IANS
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