New Delhi: Playing the secular card like
BSP, Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janta Dal today helped the
UPA Government in comfortably shaking off the Opposition
challenge of cut motions.
After leading the walkout of their 25 members, Mulayam
Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad told reporters that they came out
of the House ahead of the cut motions as they did not want to
vote along with "communal" BJP.
The walkout took place minutes before the cut motions
were put to vote and hours after BSP supremo Mayawati
announced in Lucknow that her party would vote for the
government for the sake of secularism.
Giving similar reasons, RJD chief Lalu Prasad wondered,
"how can we go with BJP?"
"We can never go with the communal BJP. What face we
will show to people if we go along with BJP. What we will say
in reply when people ask why we went with the party. We were
never with BJP nor we will ever," he said.
Prasad also said that BJP and Left brought the cut
motion today only for the sake of formality.
Yadav said they would fight the Congress in streets as
government cannot be changed in Parliament and Assembly but
through mass movement.
Both the leaders at the same time maintained that they
have no objection in supporting any such motion if it is
brought by the Left.
BJP accused the government of using CBI as a "Damocles`
sword" against vulnerable opposition leaders ahead of the cut
motions, a charge also levelled by Sharad Yadav of the JD-U.
"Events of the last few days have once again proved that
the UPA and the Congress are misusing CBI as a political
instrument for their own survival," Leader of the Opposition
in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said.
Both Prasad and Yadav, however, vehemently denied the
charge. Asked what was the deal after which they helped the
government, both the leaders said the deal actually happened
between Congress and BJP over IPL.
-PTI
