Mulayam banks on Sonia to win back UP

Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's hopes of returning to power in Uttar Pradesh have risen with growing dissension within the rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), even as the Congress party, whose support will be crucial for Yadav, has chosen to wait and watch.

A desperate Yadav is now urging the veteran Marxist leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet to convince the Congress party's central leadership about the need for formation of a "secular government" in the state.

The SP had recently announced that it would support Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi as the next prime minister of the country after the 2004 general elections.

This failed to cut ice with the Congress party which is still unhappy with Yadav for thwarting Sonia's bid to become the prime minister in 1999, when the SP refused to support her citing her Italian origin.

This forced a mid-term poll after the government had lost the no-confidence motion by one vote.
"Surjeet is the seniormost opposition leader. We have requested him to use his influence to make the Congress party see the need for formation of a secular government in Uttar Pradesh," SP general secretary Amar Singh said yesterday.

Senior Congress party leader Motilal Vora, in charge of Uttar Pradesh, however, was blunt in his assertion that there is no proposal before the party at this stage to reconsider its decision since the Mayawati-led coalition government in the state is still in power.

The party had in February taken a stand that they will support Yadav, who had staked claim to form the government after his party with 143 legislators emerged as the single largest party in the hung 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly, only if the support of its 25 legislators become essential.

Since Yadav failed to give a satisfactory reply on where he will get the remaining 34 members to support his claim, the Congress party never gave him the letter of support, paving the way for formation of a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)-BJP coalition government.

Yesterday, Yadav lost no time in demanding that Governor Vishnu Kant Shastri dismiss the Mayawati government, saying with the growing dissension in the BJP the government had been reduced to a minority.

Yadav, who addressed a meeting of his party's legislative wing in the state capital Lucknow yesterday, asserted that his party will try to form an alternative government after the Mayawati government is dislodged and would do anything to avoid holding a mid-term poll in the state.

The BJP has, in the meanwhile, intensified its efforts to mollify its rebel leaders by putting on hold its decision to suspend two senior rebel leaders from the party.

BJP's state unit chief Vinay Katiyar yesterday met the rebel leaders, who claim support of 30 out of the BJP's 88 legislators, and promised an audience with the central leadership for them.

"The state unit cannot decide on any demand to withdraw or support the Mayawati government from outside," Katiyar announced in Lucknow yesterday.

The rebels, who have been threatening to convert their Save BJP Forum into a separate political party, intensified their anti-party activities after they were refused an audience with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The BJP rebels, who are not showing any signs of buckling, are believed to be in touch with Mulayam Singh Yadav through former state chief minister Kalyan Singh, chief of the Rashtriya Kranti Party (RKP) that he floated after he was expelled form the BJP in the year 2002.

"The situation in the state is quite fluid, but we are sure we shall be able to tide over this crisis," a senior BJP functionary said here, adding that Yadav will fail in his attempt to make capital on an internal problem of their party.