CBI cases may have pushed Mulayam away from Congress

SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Trinamool Congress President Mamata Banerjee seems to be rooting for early general elections, but they also have other reasons for being peeved with the UPA coalition’s lead partner.

SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Trinamool Congress President Mamata Banerjee seems to be rooting for early general elections, but they also have other reasons for being peeved with the UPA coalition’s lead partner.

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Fresh from thumping wins in UP and West Bengal assembly polls, the powerful regional satraps seem convinced that early general elections will provide them an opportunity to reap a rich political harvest.

“Leaders and parties that have aligned with the Congress have suffered. If the elections are held now, the SP will win about 55 seats,” SP general secretary Rajesh Dixit said.

Bengal CM wants a “Bengal package” and has been explicit about her disappointment with the Centre. But how and why has Yadav come to be inflicted with Banerjee’s rebellious spirit?

The feeling in the SP camp is that, while the party bailed out the UPA government in 2008 nuclear deal and has always come to

Congress’ rescue, the UPA lead partner ‘has not done enough’ to extricate Yadav in pending CBI cases.

Judgment in the Disproportionate Assets (DA) case against Yadav has been pending in the SC for four years.

The SP sources accused that the Congress camp had been spreading rumours that judgment in the case will be pronounced shortly. In another case, the CBI’s FIRs in the Tatra trucks deal has been registered from the period of 1997 to 2012 — when the deal was signed during Yadav’s term as the defence minister in 1997. Though, he has not been named in any of the FIRs.

The SP ruling family has also been suspicious about the CBI’s case in health scam which, the FIR says, started in 2005. For two years of the scam period being probed (2005 to 2007), Yadav was UP chief minister.