Mulayam Singh summons party officials to take stock of UP developments

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav has summoned a meeting of senior party leaders following the imminent installation of the Bharatiya Janata Party-Bahujan Samaj Party government in Uttar Pradesh. BSP supremo Kanshi Ram promised vengeance against Yadav and his SP cohorts at his press conference in Lucknow late on Wednesday night.

SP general secretary Amar Singh was defiant in a conversation with Rediff On The NeT. "We will not take Kanshi Ram's threats lying down," he said, his tone not hiding the concern that Mulayam Singh's men feel about the abrupt political change in UP where both the Samajwadi Party's bitter adversaries have come to power.

Mulayam Singh cannot expect sympathy from his partners in the United Front whom he has antagonised by his conduct in UP, especially his advocacy of Governor Romesh Bhandari's continuance in office. Said one senior Communist MP, "Let Mulayam Singh Yadav find out an appropriate answer to this imbroglio. After all, he considers himself the patriarch of UP politics."

The defence minister is also unsure what effect such an alliance will have on his party's votebank in the state. SP general secretary K C Tyagi said party officials were "still assessing the situation in UP and we will take all measures required to strengthen our political base there."

The changed scenario in UP has come as a rude shock to Congress president Sitaram Kesri. The Congress has just 33 assembly seats in UP and the virtual split in the party's unit following Naresh Agarwal's defiant election as the Congress Legislature Party leader on Tuesday has further aggravated Kesri's dilemma.

Although the Congress leadership has asked Agarwal to bow out in favour of his predecessor Pramod Tiwari, Agarwal is yet to formally heed those instructions.

Senior Congress leaders have urged Kesri to take action against Jitendra Prasada, the UP party chief who first advocated the alliance with the BSP last year and recently demanded that the party leadership support the BJP motion in Parliament on Bhandari's recall. A senior Congress official said Prasada's actions were bound to cast aspersions about the party's secular credentials.