Former UP Congress chief joins hands with Mulayam
Congress stalwart and former Pradesh Congress Committee president Balram Singh Yadav today quit the party to join the Samajwadi Party, bringing an end to his 17-year-long fierce political rivalry with SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The already battered Uttar Pradesh Congress thus suffered another
severe jolt.
A beaming Defence Minister and SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav
hugged his old friend of college days, saying, ''Balram and I had been
in rival political camps but continued to be good friends.
"Balram Singh Yadav's joining the party will definitely make the
Samajwadi Party more strong and we will run the organisation as a
family,'' he added.
Balram Singh Yadav said he was very sad at ending his 38-year-old association with the Congress. At the same time, he felt happy to join the Samajwadi Party which is ''the only political outfit in the country to combat effectively the communal designs of the Bharatiya Janata Party''.
Blaming the entire Congress leadership ''for the sordid
state in which the party finds itself,'' he said the 112-year-old
party ''had lost its original path and the capability to keep the
country united."
According to the former Union minister, maintaining the unity and
integrity of the country was the biggest challenge before the
political parties and the people.
"It is in the interests of the country and for fighting communal forces that Mulayam Singh Yadav and I decided to
sink our differences and join hands,'' he added.
Tell us what you think of this report
|