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Spewing venom at the Left parties for accusing it of supporting NDA's candidate for the presidential election, Samajwadi Party on Friday alleged that the Left had no principle and consistency and never reciprocated SP's gestures towards it.
"The Left parties have no principle and consistency. They oppose corruption but still join hands with scam-tainted people at the time of elections. Though we have been extending support to the Left at the time of elections, they never reciprocate. Rather they field their candidates against us," SP spokesman Amar Singh said in New Delhi.
Asserting that SP had on its own walked out of the People's Front, he said it would be wrong for the CPM leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet to say that SP was expelled from the Front.
"SP is not isolated, it is the Left," he said.
"People's Front was formed to maintain equi-distance from Congress and BJP, but the Left took a pro-Congress line to oppose the NDA candidate for the high office (though Congress later declared its support to Kalam)," Singh said.
Asked to comment on his party's stand on the Left candidate Captain Lakshmi Sahgal, he said, "Now Kalam is in the fray, Sahgal's candidature will not have much of a significance."
"The Left has committed another historical blunder by fielding Sahgal. They will repent at leisure," he said.
On Left parties' charges that SP had joined hands with BJP in supporting Kalam's candidature, Singh said those who levelled such allegations against Samajwadi Party should see their own nationalist credentials.
To a question as to why SP chose to dump opposition unity for the sake of the NDA candidate, Singh asserted that even before Kalam became an NDA nominee, the name of the noted scientist was proposed by it to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
"How can we oppose him now. Moreover, the SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav as then defence minister in the erstwhile United Front government made Kalam the country's defence adviser and recommended his name for Bharat Ratna," he said.
He explained that the SP had earlier favoured another term for President K R Narayanan when the NDA mooted the name of Maharashtra Governor P C Alexander. But with NDA selecting Kalam for the top post, the scenario changed altogether.
Coverage of the election for the 11th President of India
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