Amar bitter about Cong but unwilling to break alliance

New Delhi, Feb 14 (PTI) Under fire from different
quarters over the tie-up with Kalyan Singh, Samajwadi Party
Saturday accused certain Congress leaders of "fanning" the
issue, but made it clear that it would not break the alliance
with the grand old party.

"They (some Congress leaders) are making Kalyan a
great issue, they are fanning this..." SP general secretary
Amar Singh said during an interview on CNN-IBN's 'Devil's
Advocate'.

After the demolition of Babri Masjid, Congress had
said that they would re-build the mosque there, Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) said they would build a temple while
Bahujan Samaj Party's founder Kanshi Ram had said that a
toilet should be built there, Singh recalled.

Questioning the Congress role during the demolition
period, the SP leader said, "After only five per cent of the
mosque was demolished, there was President's rule in UP.
The balance 95 per cent of the mosque was demolished during
President's Rule in the state when the Narasimha Rao
government was at the Centre."

Strongly defending his alliance with Kalyan Singh, the SP
leader argued that for the Babri mosque demolition "there are
two co-accused, Congress-Central government and Kalyan Singh."

"If we are ready to shake hands with Congress, that too
as an active partner ready to save government, ready to save
their nuclear deal... why not shake hands with Kalyan Singh's
ideology of opposing BJP," Singh said.

While saying that the Congress party has made him feel
"absolutely unwanted and untouchable and they feel
uncomfortable as I have a strong spinal cord and the culture
of Congress is servility," Singh, however, said that he would
not break the alliance with that party.

He claimed that he shared "not a close but a very
beautiful and formal relationship with Sonia Gandhi and a warm
rapport with Manmohan Singh... I don't think however that I
have any great relationship left with Congress party".

On being asked whether the real reason behind his
unwillingness to break the alliance was that without Congress,
SP will collapse, Singh denied and said that "in politics you
have to be pragmatic, realistic and smart so that blame game
does not stop at your doorstep, it should end at the doorstep
of Digvijay Singh".

The SP leader also dismissed that the seat sharing
talks in UP and the CBI case against his party chief Mulayam
Singh were the real reasons behind his bitterness with the
party.

He added that he would try to outsmart the party "as
there was nothing wrong in doing that". PTI