Mulayam, BJP in secret understanding for UP polls

New Delhi, Mar 24: The Congress today accused Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya janata Party of having a secret understading for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

''Voting for the BJP means voting for Mr Yadav and voting for Mr Yadav means voting for the BJP,'' said head of the Congress Campaign Committee for the state and Union Minister Kapil Sibal here.

The fact that the Mulayam Singh Government had been installed with the blessing of the BJP was no secret, said the senior Congress leader.

He also said the Congress will not support any party in forming the government in the state, after elections.

He claimed that neither the BJP, nor the SP nor the BSP will get enough seats to form the government, and even if a government was formed by any one of them with the help of the other, it will not be stable.

''This is what we have to tell the people of the state,'' he told reporters here before setting out for state capital Lucknow tomorrow to intensify the party's poll campaign in the state.

Moreover, he said the Congress will focus on the total halt of development, massive criminalisation of politics and spurt in atrocities against dalits under the Mulayam Singh Government.

Weavers, farmers, workers and people from all walks of life except the criminals are suffering under Mulayam's rule, he added.

''People of the state have now seen the rules of the three parties, and also how they could not give a stable government on their own, so it is now time for the Congress to come back from exile,'' he said.

The Mulayam Singh Yadav government has done nothing in the state excepting distributing arms to its favourites. The state capital itself has 100 gun shops and there are 41000 people in the city armed with guns, he said.

Seeking to inject a slight change in Mr Amitabh Bachchan's much maligned ''UP mein Dam hai''(UP has potential) advertisement, said ''UP mein Dam tha, lekin SP, BSP and BJP sarkaron mein nikal gaya'(UP had potential but it has been destroyed by SP, BJP and BSP governments.

Later, replying to a question about the Bachchan advertisement, he said that instead of quoting the Central Government figures about ''low incidence of crime in Uttar Pradesh'' the Samajawadi Party should supply Mr Bchchan with the crime figures in the state record itself.

UNI