Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh on Wednesday launched yet another blistering attack on the Congress and took potshots at the UPA government for alleged misuse of the Central Bureau of Investigation.
“It is not easy to fight the government, it has a thousand hands, it can send anyone to jail, it has the CBI,” he said talking to journalists after addressing a meeting of city and district unit presidents of the SP here.
Last week, after a series of no-holds-barred attacks on the Congress, which he called a “deceitful party,” Mr. Singh appeared to have buried the hatchet and decided to continue support to the Manmohan Singh government.
When his attention was drawn to senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L.K. Advani’s praise of SP ideologue Ram Manohar Lohia earlier in the day, Mr. Singh said: “What is wrong? Great leaders should be lauded, but when I praised Mr. Advani [during Dr. Lohia’s 103rd birth anniversary celebrations], a lot of hue and cry was made.”
In his inaugural address at a two-day BJP State executive meeting at Chitrakoot, Mr. Advani recalled his interaction with the socialist leader in his early days when he (Mr. Advani) was a journalist and had not yet entered active politics.
The BJP leader said Dr. Lohia “respected the Bharatiya Jana Sangh’s philosophy of nationalism, especially cultural nationalism.” (The BJP is the present avatar of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh.)
This was quickly reciprocated by Mr. Singh, who, in Lucknow, described Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee as a “great leader.”
“We are indispensable”
PTI reports:
At the Chitrakoot meeting, Mr. Advani said no one could form the next government at the Centre without the support of either his party or the Congress.
