By IANS,
Bhopal : The Congress Wednesday said the allegation of poaching four Samajwadi Party legislators in Madhya Pradesh was “baseless”.
“If Samajwadi Party MLAs (lawmakers) wanted to come over to the Congress, what could we have done?” All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary and incharge Uttar Pradesh Digvijay Singh told a reporters here.
“It is good that the MLAs decided to cross over to the Congress. Had it not been so and had they decided to go to the Bahujan Samaj Party or the Bharatiya Janata Party, it would have been more harmful”.
The Samajwadi Party should, therefore, understand the second option would have been a bigger threat than the one if they joined the Congress, he said.
“However, no decision has yet been taken by the party to take these MLAs in the Congress fold”, said Singh who is also part of the Congress team holding talks with the Samajwadi Party for seat adjustments in Uttar Pradesh.
The Samajwadi Party, which came closer to the Congress ahead of the July 22 trust vote, has eight lawmakers in the state. Four of them – Arjun Palia, K.K. Singh, Vanshmani Prasad and Vikram Singh – resigned from the party Sep 6 and declared they were joining the Congress.
This upset Samajwadi party leader Amar Singh who described it as a betrayal on the part of Congress.
“Congress party has betrayed us in Madhya Pradesh by engineering defection of four lawmakers of our party. They have not only broken my party, but also my heart,” Singh said, while addressing a tribal convention ahead of state assembly polls slated for November.