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Mulayam blasts Congress, BJP; President may give Third Front 72 hours to form govt

President K R Narayanan may give the Third Front 72 hours to form an alternative government at the Centre.

Revealing this, sources in the Rashtrapathi Bhavan said the President may not invite the Congress to form a minority government, following the rigid stand taken by the Samajwadi Party, All India Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party.

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav today informed the President that his party would not support anyone, including the Congress, for the formation of the next government.

During his 30-minute meeting with the President, Mulayam submitted a written statement that the party would be equidistance both from the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress and would not support any of these parties for the formation of a government.

Mulayam told the President that his party was of the firm view that both the Congress and BJP were responsible for the problems being faced by the country.

In a scathing attack on the Congress, he said that the party had landed the country in the foreign debt-trap by pursuing wrong economic policies, besides abetting communal forces and pursuing pseudo-secularism.

On the other hand, the BJP endangered the country's unity and integrity with its communal and anti-minorities approach.

Mulayam alleged that both the parties always worked against the interest of the dalits, minorities and backwards.

In the backdrop of such a scenario, the Samajwadi Party would not support any one of them to form the government, he added.

Party general secretary Amar Singh said the SP could not be blamed for taking a strong stand against the Congress.

It was the Congress which had declared the SP as its main target of attack at the Pachmarhi session.

Also, the SP had wanted to pull down the BJP-led government immediately after it was formed. But Congress president Sonia Gandhi had made it clear that it was not interested in taking such a step, least with the SP help.

The Congress had also stated that ''we have to regain the lost ground from the SP'' in Uttar Pradesh.

In view of all this, ''We have no option but to distance ourselves from the Congress,'' Amar Singh said.

He, however, did not rule out the possibility of enlisting the Congress support for the formation of a Third Front government.

Asked who would be the prime minister of that dispensation, he said the choice would be left to the Congress.

He sought to justify the stand maintaining that the Congress was still a 'lesser evil' than the BJP. Moreover, the SP was not in favour of mid-term polls.

Mulayam chose not to face the media and entrusted the job of briefing it with Amar Singh and another party general secretary Azam Khan who faced a barrage of hostile questions.

Amar Singh said the SP should not be accused of pushing the country to the brink of a mid-term poll as the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government was brought down primarily by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham and its leader J Jayalalitha.

Asked if Mulayam was in touch with Samata Party leader and Defence Minister George Fernandes to float an alternative government with the support of other parties, including of the BJP indirectly, Amar Singh said it was a canard aimed at defaming his party.

Asked about the party's stand in the event of the BJP again forming a government, he said it would oppose such a development.

Asked about the status of the Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha of his party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Laloo Prasad Yadav in the light of the SP's stand, he said the Left Front in West Bengal was intact despite the refusal of the All India Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party to toe the line of the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India-Marxist on the question of support to a Congress government.

Laloo Yadav too said today that this would not affect the RLM.

The All India Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party also announced today that they would maintain equidistance from both the Congress and the BJP.

After meeting the President, AIFB general secretary Debabrata Biswas said, ''We have voted out the BJP and we will not vote for the Congress. We stick to the commitment made to the people last year.''

The two parties together have seven members in the Lok Sabha.

''We are for a Third Front government,'' Biswas said.

They had also submitted a letter in this regard to the President, RSP West Bengal general secretary Debabrata Bandhopadyay, who was also present at the media briefing, added.

Meanwhile, Congress president Sonia will meet the President at 1930 hours.

Mulayam keen on Third Front government, calls Naidu

Additional reportage: UNI

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