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'Congress should keep away from SP-Kalyan friendship issue'

Source: PTI
February 08, 2009 18:58 IST
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In a stern message to Congress, Samajwadi Party Chief Mulayam Singh said on Sunday that it had "no moral right" to comment on the bonhomie between his party and former BJP leader Kalyan Singh as the grand old party was in power at the Centre when Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992.
    
"I want to advise Congress to keep away from the issue of Kalyan Singh's friendship with SP as it did not have the moral right to do so," Singh told media-persons in Lucknow.
    
"From opening up the locks and allowing foundation laying at Babri mosque in Ayodhya, all was done during Congress
regimes at the centre. Even in 1992 when the mosque was demolished, it was Congress which was ruling at the Centre," Singh said.
    
The Congress leaders, who want to make it an election issue, should not do so as their party itself was "somehow or
the other responsible" for demolition of the mosque, the SP chief alleged.
    
"Had they not opened the lock and permitted the Shilanyas (in Ayodhya), the mosque would not have not been demolished by the communal forces," Singh said, claiming that in 1990, when he was the UP Chief Minister he had ordered police firing to protect the mosque.
    
However, he said the SP is ready for a tie-up with Congress in the state for upcoming Lok Sabha polls. "We are not opportunist. We had supported Congress and still supporting it at the Centre. An alliance will take place from our side," Yadav said, replying to a query.

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