Date:07/02/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/02/07/stories/2006020709811100.htm

Opinion - Interviews

Congress bent on creating problems: Mulayam

Venkitesh Ramakrishnan

Uttar Pradesh Chief MinisterMulayam Singh Yadavsays his party is trying to expose how the Congress is working against the ideals of secularism, and consequently against the national interest. Excerpts from an exclusive interview:

Mulayam Singh Yadav: "Somebody has fed the Governor [T.V. Rajeswar] with wrong information. - PHOTO: SUBIR ROY

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh has been at the receiving end of many a political challenge in the last couple of months. The revolt by Raj Babbar, cine star-turned-party Lok Sabha member from Agra, three days ago and the adverse comments against the State police by Governor T.V. Rajeshwar at a public function last week are the latest in this series of challenges.

This was preceded by the controversies over the tapping of the telephones of Amar Singh, high-profile general secretary of the SP, and Mr. Singh's own virtual eviction from his residence in New Delhi by Central Government agencies.

Your party and its government seem to be going though a series of internal and external problems.

It is all motivated. None of these is genuine, real problems caused by our own actions. The Congress and sections of the Central Government are not happy with the SP's growing acceptability among the people of Uttar Pradesh [and] are bent upon creating problems for us. What you are seeing are the manifestations of these machinations.

Raj Babbar has been a committed activist of the SP for many decades and the problems he has raised relate to the internal functioning of the party. What has the Congress got do with it?

The very fact that he has raised an internal party issue in public shows there are other motivations. He says that party general secretary Amar Singh has no utility. He does not like the role Amar Singh has in the party and the State Government. I have always been accessible to Mr. Babbar; he could have raised his concerns with me or raised it in party forums. Without doing it, he goes to public platforms and raises baseless charges. I know what has happened. He is not able to digest the significant contribution made by Amar Singh to the party, the prominence he has got in national politics because of that and in such a situation he has played into the hands of certain vested interests.

Vested interests like?

All that will get exposed in due course. Wait and see.

Governor Rajeshwar's charges against the State police department are also serious. He has said publicly that the role of sections of the State police, including senior officers in the recent district Panchayat elections — in which the SP made major gains — is illegal and that the State Election Commission shall soon take action.

How am I supposed to respond, when somebody like the Governor of a State forgets his own position and his constitutional responsibilities? Even admitting that the charges against police officers were true, was a public meeting the right platform for a Governor to raise it? My own feeling is that somebody has fed the Governor with wrong information and it has carried him away. Honestly, I do not find any merit in the allegations.

Many leaders of the SP have accused the Governor of political partisanship. Do you agree with them?

The actions of the Governor and their virtues have been on display for many months now. I suppose the media and the people are intelligent enough to make their own conclusions. I will only state one thing. That the Congress leadership has proved, especially in the past one and a half years, that they will go to any length to undermine the mass base of the SP in Uttar Pradesh. They have tried to sabotage the work of the Government, even in key areas like power generation and agricultural development.

So, what are the SP and its government doing to counter the so-called acts of sabotage?

At the government level, we have been trying to continue with the good work and agencies like the Planning Commission have appreciated our results. Politically, we are exposing how Congress is working against the ideals of secularism, other secular forces and consequently against national interests.

Issues like the despicable turnaround of foreign policy, as reflected in the Iran IAEA vote, are part of our campaign. The people of Uttar Pradesh are responding positively to this.