Amar Singh, Ramgopal likely to be on Cong-SP coordination panel

New Delhi, Aug 20 (UNI) Samajawadi Party(SP) General Secretary Amar Singh and leader of the party's Parliamentary Group Ram Gopal Yadav were likely to be nominated to the Congress-SP Coordination panel that has been mooted to keep the ruling UPA's supporting party involved in the affairs of the government while remaining outside it.

The idea to have such a panel gained favour after the expected induction of SP members in the Council of Ministers could not take place due to various reasons.

Though SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav would also be on the panel but he is not expected to be very active as he has to concentrate on Uttar Pradesh in view of the coming elections, a senior SP leader told UNI.

Asked if the idea of the SP joining the Government has been dropped, he said,'' That can come even later. The first priority was to have some mechanism to put across our views and suggestions on the policies and programmes of the Government, and to formulate a joint strategy for the coming Lok Sabha elections.'' While admitting that efforts were on to put in place the coordination panel, Mr Ramgopal Yadav, however, refused to give any names.

According to reports, the Congress will have four members on the panel-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Defence Minister A K Antony.

The ruling alliance had a similar coordination panel with the Left before they parted company over the nuclear deal.

The SP had played a very crucial role in the survival of the UPA Government during the voting on the Confidence Motion in Parliament about a month back.

After the Manmohan Singh Government survived, speculations were rife that the SP would soon join the Government, though party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had been emphatically underlining that his party had not supported the Congress out of any greed for power. However, party General Secretary Amar Singh had been giving indications of this opinion party being in favour of joining the Government.

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