Mulayam confident that Vajpayee will lose trust vote again
Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow
Former defence minister and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav today predicted the fall of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government when it seeks the vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha on March 28.
Addressing a press conference in Lucknow, a confident Yadav said, "I will ensure the fall of the government," while asking, "In any case, do you think this kind of government with an edge of just one seat, can last?"
He favoured the installation of a Congressman as Lok Sabha Speaker, and hoped that all parties would evolve a consensus on this issue.
When a correspondent asked him if he would stick to his earlier stand that he would retire from politics if the BJP were to come to power at the Centre, Yadav flatly denied having ever made any such statement. "I never said anything like that; it was a distortion by the media," he said, while hastening to add, "And even if you still wish to attribute the statement to me, let me tell you, the government led by Vajpayee is hardly a BJP government."
According to him, "The present government in Delhi is a hotch-potch of 14 parties in which Jayalalitha's AIADMK has the dominant place, so where is it the BJP government anyway?"
Yadav also reacted sharply to the Kalyan Singh government's recent decision to promulgate legislation, making the use of unfair means in examinations a cognisable offence. "I have always been against the use of any such extreme measures to curb the menace of copying in examinations; because I feel the police should be kept out of this in any civilised society."
According to him, "What the BJP government has done was a measure that had a place only in an uncivilised society." And terming it as a black law, he added that the use of such stringent measures "was bound to affect the careers of students who would be be put behind bars under this law and I am going to oppose it tooth and nail."
The Samajwadi Party chief, who was among the few major Opposition leaders to have boycotted the swearing-in of the Vajpayee government, reiterated, "I had already made it clear that I would have nothing whatsoever to do with a government of communal forces, so there was no question of my being present at the ceremony."
Elections '98
Tell us what you think of this report
|