No plans now to withdraw support to UPA: Mulayam

SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has been breathing fire against the government, today said he has no plans now to withdraw support to UPA, a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledged such a possibility. “Relations have not soured. I do not know on what basis the Prime Minister made these remarks. Right now withdrawing support has not been discussed in the party. Now there is no question of SP withdrawing support to the UPA government.

“Why withdraw support and make the government fall when it’s a matter of just eight-nine months,” Yadav told CNN-IBN.

His remarks assume significance against the backdrop of the Prime Minister’s acknowledgement yesterday about the possibility of the SP’s withdrawal of support to the UPA.

Reacting to the Prime Minister’s statement, the BJP claimed that mid-term poll was inevitable as the government has lost the numbers while JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav did not expect Mulayam to withdraw support.

The SP chief, however, appeared to drop hints of his prime ministerial ambitions drawing comparisons between the performance of his party government in Uttar Pradesh and other states including Narendra Modi government in Gujarat.

Listing out development programmes being implemented in the SP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, he asked, “Are such programmes being implemented in Gujarat. So much work is happening in such a populous state like Uttar Pradesh. But everybody’s eyes are closed”.

“A Third Front will emerge. Fronts emerge as per the situation in the country. After 2014, the Prime Minister will be from the Third Front,” he said.

Asked whether he would head the front, he said, “That will be seen later. Asked if he wanted to become Prime Minister, he said, “I have never thought of becoming Prime Minister nor am I thinking about it now.”