'SP not to join UPA if Mamata pulls out' -Governance Now

'SP not to join UPA if Mamata pulls out'

Party gen secy says SP would continue to provide an outside support to the government

GN Bureau | June 18, 2012

The Samajwadi Party declared that it was not going to join the UPA government in the event of Trinamool Congress pulling out as a sequel to the face-off on the presidential election. But it would continue to provide an outside support to the government as it is opposed to creating any political crisis that leads to a mid-term poll, party general secretary and spokesman Ramgopal Yadav said.

The declaration came on behalf of party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, who quietly slipped out of Delhi after turning tables on Mamata Banerjee by distancing away from taking on the UPA as he was roped in by Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel to back Pranab Mukherjee in the presidential election.

While Mulayam chose to travel to Lucknow via Agra by road to remain unavailable for any comments, Ramgopal Yadav also did not openly back Mukherjee but in a covert reply said that his party could not back a NDA candidate. Inference was that the party had a second thought on former president APJ Abdul Kalam, whom Mulayam and Mamata proposed, suspecting that he was veering towards the BJP-led NDA to be its candidate.

The first indication of Mulayam distancing away from Mamata's call for Kalam as the presidential candidate came on Thursday evening when he did not join her to address the press outside his residence, though she sought to stress that both she and Mulayam were endorsing his candidature.

The veiled threat of their withdrawal from the Manmohan Singh government came from the Trinamool sources who said their continuance become untenable if the Congress carried out its threat of withdrawing from her coalition government in West Bengal. The West Bengal PCC has already written to Sonia Gandhi for permission to part ways with the state government.

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