NLP flip flops on support to UPA

New Delhi, Jul 18 (UNI) A day after the National Loktantrik Party (NLP) issued a whip to its lone Lok Sabha member to vote against the UPA government during trust vote, it said today that the party can ''rethink''the decision during its national executive meet on Sunday.

NLP president Mohd Arshad Khan claimed that if the government agreed to implement the recommendations of the Rangnath Commission recommendations on minorities and cleared a list of 17 Hindu castes from Uttar Pradesh to be included as SCs, then the July 20 national executive committee may ''rethink'' on the trust vote. ''The government cannot do anything in two days but the paper work can at least start,'' he said.

But at the same time, Mr Khan also alleged that the Samajwadi Party was trying to make him change his stand on the trust vote.

''I was offered Rs 15 crore to vote in favour of the UPA government,'' he told reporters here.

He claimed the party took the decision to vote against the UPA as the government had not cared to draft a letter seeking its support for the confidence motion. ''They wrote to Mulayam Singh Yadav but not the smaller outfits who had been supporting the government for a long time,'' he added.

Baleshwar Yadav, who had quit the Samajwadi Party earlier, is the NLP MP from Padrauna Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh.

The Samajwadi Party, while submitting a fresh letter of support for the UPA government to President Pratibha Patil, had claimed on July nine that the NLP MP would vote in favour of UPA during the trust vote. ''They never asked us before handing over the letter.'' UNI NAB RR KN1829