By IANS,
Lucknow : Accusing his party leaders of double standards, a Samajwadi Party MP Wednesday came out against a tie-up with the Congress party over the India-US nuclear deal. And a party legislator and another legislator from the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) came out in his support.
“If the Samajwadi Party issues a whip (to vote for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government), we will defy it,” Munawar Hassan, the Lok Sabha member from Muzzafarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, told reporters here.
The two legislators who came out in his support were Gauri Shanker of the Samajwadi Party (Malihabad in Lucknow) and Kadir Rana of RLD (Morna in Muzzafarnagar).
In comparison to the Samajwadi Party, Hassan asserted that Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati was never involved in any “anti-Muslim activities”.
“Mayawati has had three alliances with the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and they were not at all involved in any anti-Muslim activities. But Mulayam Singh has no interest in us,” he said. “Today we are three but in near future we will be 13.”
When pointed out that Mayawati had attended election rallies of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Hassan said: “We are not aware of any such activity.”
Hassan and the legislators claimed that the Samajwadi Party leadership was hurtling towards the Congress for selfish reasons under the garb of the controversial nuclear deal.
Hassan’s outburst came a day after Mayawati declared that the India-US nuclear deal would hurt Muslim sentiments.