New Delhi, Sept 06: Congress tonight said it will not be joining the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh "for the time being". The decision of the party was conveyed to Yadav and Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh by Congress General Secretary Nawal Kishore Sharma and Ahmad Patel, political secretary to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Party General Secretary Ambika Soni said. Soni said that both Yadav and Amar Singh had tried to contact Gandhi earlier in the day but she was not able to speak to them as she was away on a tour to Rajasthan and Haryana. Though Gandhi could not talk to the SP leaders, she conveyed the congress decision to them through Sharma and Patel, Soni said. The Congress party decision comes two days before the vote of confidence Yadav is seeking in the UP assembly.

CWC had last week deliberated on the issue while empowering Gandhi to take a decision on the matter.
While 16 Congress MLAs in the state were in favour of joining the government and pressing the leadership for it, a section of senior central leaders were strongly opposed to it.

Earlier in the day, Gandhi remained non-committal on whether her party would join the Yadav government, saying that the situation was still "very fluid".
In an informal discussion with reporters in Haryana, she, however, insisted that her party's support to the Yadav government was the "first step" after the Shimla conclave where the Congress decided to work with other secular parties to defeat the communal forces.
Bureau Report