The Hindu : Mulayam-Sonia rift widens

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 17, 2002

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Mulayam-Sonia rift widens
By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 16 Cracks in the secular camp opened a bit wider today when the Samajwadi Party leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, told the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi to ``keep quiet'' or he would see to it that she was ``exposed''. He was responding to the charge levelled by Ms. Gandhi a few days earlier that it was Mr. Yadav's refusal to support a Congress Government in 1999 that had helped the BJP stage a comeback.

Mr. Yadav's rather sharp reaction, in a chat with a television reporter, is a reflection of the bitterness that has been generated in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Leaders of the Samajwadi Party resent the Congress suggestion that because of Mr. Yadav's presumed antipathy to Ms. Gandhi, an alternative Government could not be formed in 1999 after the Vajpayee Government was voted out by one vote.

Today Mr. Yadav put the onus on Ms. Gandhi. He argued that it was a considered Samajwadi policy to be either in Government or the opposition. ``Last time we were ready to be part of a coalition Government. But Sonia Gandhi wanted to form the Government alone,'' he said.

In her election speeches in the last few days, Ms. Gandhi has raked up the Samajwadi's ``betrayal''. Both the Congress and the SP are now competing for the minorities' vote, and the resurrection of the 1999 controversy is the Congress way of weaning the Muslim voter away from the Samajwadi influence.

The Congress leadership has been particularly keen on making the point that there would be no patch-up between the Congress and the SP after the election; its calculation is that any suggestion that the two would come together to form the Government could simply persuade the Muslims to vote en masse for the SP, thereby leaving the Congress stranded in a no-man's land.

The Samajwadis are also under a similar compulsion. Mr. Yadav was categorical today in denying the possibility of a post-election understanding: ``there was no talks from our side, neither is there any possibility of talks with Congress. We do not want anybody's support.''

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