By IANS,
Hyderabad : The Telugu Desam Party, a key constituent of the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA), Saturday said the Samajwadi Party’s exit would have no impact on the alliance.
TDP’s senior leader and former MP R. Chandrasekhara Reddy confirmed that the Samajwadi Party was no longer a part of the UNPA following its decision to back the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government on the India-US nuclear deal.
“We may lose one or two allies but credibility is far more important for us. We have been opposing the nuclear deal from day one as it goes against the national interests and there is no change in our stand,” Reddy told IANS.
“The UNPA will continue without the Samajwadi Party. We have lost one partner but we will try to get more new partners opposed to both the Congress and the BJP,” he said.
When asked whether TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu would replace Mulayam Singh as the new leader of the UNPA, he said the next meeting of the UNPA would take a decision in this regard.
Naidu, who is currently visiting north coastal Andhra districts as part of his ongoing state-wide ‘yatra’, had rushed to Delhi Thursday to meet Mulayam and other UNPA leaders to keep the alliance together. The TDP chief returned Friday.
Though the UNPA declared that it was intact and demanded a national debate on the nuclear deal, the Samajwadi Party changed its stand the next day and announced that it was convinced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s clarification. The Samajwadi Party also cited former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s support to the deal.
“There is nothing new in what the PM and Kalam said. We had demanded a national debate as the issue involves sovereignty of the nation but unfortunately the Samajwadi Party chose to join hands with the Congress for the sake of its own agenda in Uttar Pradesh,” Reddy said.
On the Samajwadi Party’s argument that communal forces were more dangerous than the nuclear deal, the TDP leader said the UNPA would remain opposed to both the Congress and the BJP. He reminded Samajwadi Party that it had been criticising the misrule of the Congress and nuclear deal ever since the formation of the UNPA.
He said the TDP would continue to play a crucial role at the national level in bringing together all the parties opposed to both the Congress and the BJP.
Meanwhile, Naidu spoke to Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader Om Prakash Chautala and other UNPA leaders over phone and discussed the situation arising out of the Samajwadi Party’s decision.