'Congress will have to talk to us'

Though results seemed to preclude any pivotal role for the SP, Mulayam Singh asserted Congress would seek their help.

Though the general election results Thursday seemed to preclude any pivotal role for the Samajwadi Party, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav asserted the Congress would eventually be forced to seek his party's assistance.

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With the Congress and its allies getting 175 seats and leading in another 41 -- and the Left parties also set to do well -- the role of the Samajwadi Party in any formation in the centre could be marginal.

But Yadav didn't think so.

"Even if it does not do so today, tomorrow the Congress would be compelled to involve us in their scheme of things," Yadav told reporters at a press conference here.

The Samajwadi chief evaded questions about being a contender for the prime minister's post.

"The Samajwadi Party has always stood for its ideology and principles. We have never hankered after power. Therefore, the question of bargaining for a place for our party in the new regime does not figure in my list of priorities."

Hitting out at both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he said: "All parties in general and the Congress and BJP in particular left no stone unturned to label the Samajwadi Party as a tout of the BJP. But the poll results have proved them all wrong."

"While the Congress leaders were most vocal on the issue, what hurt me most was the virtual tirade unleashed by none other than Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself who virtually ran a tirade to misguide people about the Samajwadi Party."

Of the results declared in Uttar Pradesh's 80 seats, the Samajwadi Party has got 37, the Bahujan Samaj Party 19, the BJP 11 and the Congress 10.

Jubilant over the results, he said it was a great achievement considering that the party was under attack from all corners "with the result that I had to personally go about issuing clarifications".

"We have grown with each election over the past one-and-a-half decades. We began with just five seats in the Lok Sabha. Then we took our tally to 17, 20 and 27 in the subsequent elections. Today, we are set to go well beyond that."

He said he had convened a meeting of the new MPs of his party in New Delhi Friday afternoon. After that, the party's parliamentary board will meet followed by a meeting with ally Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal.

Answering questions on how the Samajwadi Party was still far short of its target of becoming a national party as its success was confined only to Uttar Pradesh, Yadav quipped: "Well, one of our nominees has won the state assembly election in Andhra Pradesh too."

--Indo-Asian News Service

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