UPA disintegration would start after assembly polls: Naidu

Chennai, Mar 7: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader M Venkaiah Naidu today (Mar 7, 2006) claimed that the process of disintegration of the Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) would start after the assembly elections to five states in April/May.

Talking to newspersons here, he said with a number of its constituents becoming unhappy, the stability of the UPA Government at the Centre became a question mark and would worsen after the assembly elections.

Stating that the Congress had serious differences with its allies like the Samajwadi Party, BSP, CPI(M), CPI, TRS, JDS and MDMK, which was on the way out, he said the party would further weaken as it was expected to lose power in three of the five states.

Mr Naidu said the Left parties had strong differences with the UPA Government. If Prime Minister Manmohan Singh goes all the way to the airport to receive US President George W Bush, the Left Parties have gone to the streets with a ''go back Bush'' slogan. This had sent a wrong signal across the world about India's Foreign policy, he said.

To a question that the Left parties would not rock the boat as they would be paving the way for the BJP to come back to power, Mr Naidu said it was true that the ''insurance for the UPA is only the BJP'', but how long can the Left continue with the vicarious pleasure.

Disagreeing with the disqualification of Ms Jaya Bachchan, Mr Naidu said ''I don't think MPs can be disqualified on technical issues.

Mr Naidu described as the ''Joke of the year,'' Mr Vaiko's remarks that POTA, under which he was detained for 19 months by the Jayalalithaa Government, was only an act enacted by the Vajpayee Government and Ms Jayalalithaa had only implemented it.

UNI