Lucknow, July 10: Welcoming the decision of the Congress to enter into an alliance with secular parties in the coming elections, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and president of Rashtriya Kranti Party Kalyan Singh today said there should be no pre-condition on leadership issue in coalition politics. "Though the Shimla resolution of the Congress was welcome, but its precondition of accepting its president Sonia Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate was against the very spirit of coalition politics," Singh told reporters here.
"By adopting rigid stand on the leadership issue, the Congress wanted to show that it was not really open to coalition politics," he said. The alliance should be based on common programme an agenda and the leader should be elected only by the MPs, he added.
Singh said RKP and the Samajwadi Party would be contesting the coming assembly elections in Delhi and Madhya Pradesh while a decision on whether to contest in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan would be taken later.
The two parties have in principle agreed on seat adjustment in the state as well, he added.
Replying to a question, Singh said NDA projecting Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the prime ministerial candidate was also against the democratic norms.
To a question over Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin, the RKP leader said that the issue was now 'irrelevant'. Bureau Report