As the Congress looks to have a deeper engagement with the Samajwadi Party (SP) to secure stability for a UPA government shaken frequently by the Trinamool Congress, the party’s general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh, Digvijaya Singh, the man who spearheaded the anti-SP campaign in the assembly elections, has said that he would have no objection if the SP joined the UPA government.
He said that an SP-Congress alliance at the centre would have no bearing on the Congress’s prospects in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, which it would in any case contest alone.
“I have no objection to their (the SP’s) joining the government. While any decision on the SP joining the government will be taken at the government of India level, it will not affect our prospects in UP. In 2014 also, we will be fighting on our own and not with the SP or any other party,” Digvijaya Singh told The Sunday Express.
“In the state election, people voted for the SP to replace the BSP but in national elections, they will be voting for a national party. They will make that distinction regardless of whether the SP is a part of the government at the centre or not,” he added.
Digvijaya Singh’s endorsement of the likely coalition arrangement between the two parties at the centre is set to give a fillip to the efforts by a section of the Congress to get the SP, which has 22 MPs in the Lok Sabha, to join the Union Cabinet. Congress sources said that the party has already sent “feelers” to the SP leadership about its readiness to welcome them into the UPA but the SP is yet to take a call. “We are not power hungry. Such things are decided by the Parliamentary Board of our party,” said senior SP leader Shailendra Kumar.
–Agencies