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
