Congress asks SP to exercise restraint

New Delhi, Sep 25 (UNI) The Congress today asked the Samajwadi Party (SP) to maintain restraint and sobriety, and make use of the Congress-SP coordination panel to air its genuine grievances and avoid going to the press.

This was for the first time that the Congress had reactedly strongly against the SP since the latter helped the Manmohan Singh government win a vote of confidence in Parliament, necessitated by the withdrawal of support by the Left Parties over the Indo-US Nuclear deal, towards the end of July this year.

Within hours after SP General Secretary Amar Singh convened a Press Conference and attacked the Congress leaders over the slow progress in seat sharing between them for the Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh, in a clear indication of deteriorating relationship between the two parties, AICC Spokesman Abishek Manu Singhvi said : ''when two parties or two coalitions are engaging constructively, it is virtually necessary to maintain restraint, sobriety and balance.'' ''An allegation or a statement a day is never good for the relationships,'' he said, while pointing out that ''there are enough mechanisms within, for the Congress and the SP, to air any genuine grievance and avoid going to the press.'' On the reservations expressed by Mr Amar Singh over the way Home Minister Shivraj Patil had been handling internal security, Dr Singhvi said ''most importantly, one should not bring in a serious issues like terrorism because the entire concentrated focus of the