Samajwadi Party open to joining govt

The Samajwadi Party is open to joining the Congress-led government at the Centre.

"If the Congress wants us to join the government, we will consult (CPI-M general secretary) Comrade (Harkishen Singh) Surjeet," SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav said.

Singh said he felt hurt by the Congress party's 'insulting' attitude towards the SP in the post-poll period.

It is ironic, he said, that though the SP had trounced the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance coalition in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress did not bother to consult it during the process of government formation.

"Nobody has talked to us other that Com Surjeet and the CPM," Singh said. "They did not even acknowledge our support even when I had gone for Sonia's (Gandhi) dinner with Surjeet on his suggestion," Singh said.

Singh said the SP had defeated the 'collective might' of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani, Vinay Katiyar, Swami Chinmayanand and Sushma Swaraj; and 'yet we are not being consulted in the group of secular parties'.

Still, the party as per its 'secular dharma' had declared support to the Congress and given a letter to the President to that effect, he said.

Singh lashed out at the BJP for not supporting him on the issue of Sonia Gandhi's 'foreign origin', when he tabled a private member's bill in Parliament during the tenure of the NDA government.

Against that background, Singh said, it was 'opportunistic' of the BJP to have raised the issue of Sonia Gandhi's foreign origins, along with those of the Ram Temple and Bofors, during the election campaign.

"I am not raising the issue (of Gandhi's origins) any more in view of the verdict given by the Supreme Court," he said.