Kanshi Ram's shocking 'secret pact with Rao'

Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Kanshi Ram dropped a bombshell he revealed a secret deal he had struck with former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao.

''If Rao continued as Congress president, the H D Deve Gowda government would have crashed in November 1996,'' the BSP chief said. ''And the country would have faced a mid-term election.''

''The understanding," Kanshi Ram revealed, "was that Rao would pull the rug from under Deve Gowda immediately after the Uttar Pradesh assembly election results were announced. And then the Congress and the BSP would have fought the general election together.''

But the secret pact went awry as Sitaram Kesri, who took over as Congress president in September 1996, had other designs. ''I broached the subject with Kesri, but he had his own agenda,'' said Kanshi Ram.

Asked if he would support the Bharatiya Janata Party government from next month as per the BSP-BJP agreement in Uttar Pradesh, Kanshi Ram said, ''We will back them, provided they do not reverse the trends set by the Mayawati government. We do not expect them to implement our policies with gusto but they should not reverse them.''

Asked if his party would join an alliance mooted by the Congress and a section of the United Front to keep the BJP in check, Kanshi Ram said his party is looking for a ladder to move up. ''If the Congress wishes to be the ladder, one can think about it,'' he said, adding that the the question of breaking ties with the BJP did not arise. ''We are already on the ladder. Why should we break it?''

Kanshi Ram said his party was not bound to any particular party, be it the BJP or the Congress, and its main goal was to ensure that the BSP moved forward.

Was he ruling out an alliance with the BJP at the national level? Kanshi Ram said the relations between the two parties were confined to Uttar Pradesh at the moment. ''We will think about these things after one year,'' he said. Asked why he called the BJP leaders vultures recently, the BSP chief said, ''I have described the BJP as a cobra in 1988.''

UNI

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