Under fire from different quarters over the tie-up with Kalyan Singh, the Samajwadi Party today accused certain Congress leaders of "fanning" the issue, but made it clear that it would not break the alliance with the grand old party.
They (some Congress leaders) are making Kalyan a great issue, they are fanning this..." SP general secretary Amar Singh said during an interview on CNN-IBN's 'Devil's Advocate'.
After the demolition of Babri Masjid, the Congress said that they would re-build the mosque there, the BJP said they would build a temple while BSP's founder Kanshi Ram had said that a toilet should be built there, Singh recalled.
Questioning the Congress role during the demolition period, the SP leader said, "After only five per cent of the mosque was demolished, there was President's rule in UP."
The rest 95 per cent of the mosque was demolished during President's Rule in the state when the Narasimha Rao government was at the Centre."
Strongly defending his alliance with Kalyan Singh, the SP leader argued that for the Babri mosque demolition "there are two co-accused, Congress-Central government and Kalyan Singh."
"If we are ready to shake hands with Congress, that too as an active partner ready to save government, ready to save their nuclear deal... why not shake hands with Kalyan Singh's ideology of opposing BJP," Singh said.
While saying that the Congress party has made him feel "absolutely unwanted and untouchable and they feel uncomfortable as I have a strong spinal cord and the culture of Congress is servility," Singh, however, said that he would not break the alliance with that party.
He claimed that he shared "not a close but a very beautiful and formal relationship with Sonia Gandhi and a warm rapport with Manmohan Singh... I don't think however that I have any great relationship left with the Congress".
On being asked whether the real reason behind his unwillingness to break the alliance was that without Congress, the SP will collapse, Singh denied and said that "in politics you have to be pragmatic, realistic and smart so that blame game does not stop at your doorstep, it should end at the doorstep of Digvijay Singh".
The SP leader also dismissed that the seat-sharing talks in UP and the CBI case against his party chief Mulayam Singh were the real reasons behind his bitterness with the party.
He added that he would try to outsmart the party "as there was nothing wrong in doing that".
