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BSP to shun manuvadi parties

Jamil Akhter in New Delhi

The Bahujan Samaj Party is totally averse to having any type of alliance or seat adjustment with manuvadi parties.

BSP chief Kanshi Ram, in unequivocal terms, ruled out any truck with the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress or Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party either at the national or state level.

''There would also be no kind of relationships with the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Laloo Prasad Yadav or Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh,'' he added.

The BSP would strive for seat adjustments with the regional parties in states where the party was not in a strong position. It was likely to enter into an alliance with Bansi Lal's Haryana Vikas Party and similarly with the Akali Dal faction led by Gurcharan Singh Tohra in Punjab, he said.

Asked about reports of talks going on between him and senior Congress leaders for some kind of seat adjustments at the eleventh hour in Uttar Pradesh, the BSP leader said these were ''mere rumours spread by the Congress to check the pre-poll exodus from that party''.

Kanshi Ram also dismissed reports about differences between him and former UP chief minister Mayawati over the issue of alliance/seat adjustment with the Congress particularly in Uttar Pradesh as ''a mere figment of imagination.''

The BSP leader announced that the decision of contesting all the 85 Lok Sabha seats in UP was final. ''I have made it amply clear at Bareilly on July 7 while addressing a dharna programme to protest against the UP government's move to change the name of Jyotiba Phule Univeristy to Maharana Pratap University.''

Asked about his plans to contest in the coming Lok Sabha elections, the BSP leader said he was a Rajya Sabha member and did not intend to fight the election this time as he had a long time to go before finishing his term in the Upper House.

UNI

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