By IANS,
Lucknow: Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav Saturday virtually disowned Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rebel Kalyan Singh but blamed the Congress for his party’s humiliating defeats in the assembly and Lok Sabha by-elections in Uttar Pradesh.
“Kalyan Singh was never a part of the Samajwadi Party, nor is he one today and let me also tell you that he will never be allowed to join our party,” Mulayam Singh said at a press conference here.
Asked how far he held Kalyan Singh responsible for his party’s rout in the polls, Mulayam Singh preferred to attack the Congress instead.
“Well, for that matter, we have suffered more on account of other so-called friends, whose government we went all out to save,” he said, referring to the Congress-led government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh which survived a vote of no-confidence last year with the support of the Samajwadi Party among others.
The Samajwadi Party was defeated in all the by-elections held Nov 7 to fill 11 seats in the Uttar Pradesh assembly. The Congress routed it in the battle for the Ferozabad Lok Sabha constituency where Mulayam Singh’s daughter-in-law Dimple fell to former movie star Raj Babbar.
When it was suggested that his bonhomie with Kalyan Singh alienated the Muslim community, who held the former chief minister responsible for the Babri mosque razing, Mulayam was quick to hit out at the Congress again.
“Why don’t you people see how the Congress party ushered in people like (former Shiv Sena leader) Sanjay Nirupam who were responsible for unleashing the worst kind of violence against Muslims?” he asked.
Mulayam Singh declined to answer a query whether he would continue to keep Kalyan Singh’s son Rajvir Singh in the party.
“Why didn’t you all raise this question when I made him and (Kalyan’s Singh’s close associate) Kusum Rai ministers in my government?”
Hours later, Rajvir Singh, a general secretary of the Samajwadi Party, said he did not believe his father’s support to the party proved counter-productive in the by-elections. But he refused to comment on Mulayam Singh’s statement that the party had nothing to do with Kalyan Singh.
“In my view, the SP did not lose anything after taking the support of Babuji (Kalyan Singh),” he told reporters in Etah district, about 300 km from Lucknow.
Terming himself a “true soldier” of the SP, he said: “I would only like to say I will respect every decision that would be taken by Mulayamji… I will do whatever the party asks me to do.”