“If the cricket teams of India and Pakistan play as one, would anybody be able to defeat them?” Mulayam Singh Yadav asked the Lok Sabha while batting for the creation of a “mahasangh” comprising India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. “You will be creating history if you are able to make a mahasangh. these three countries will become prosperous in trade,” Mulayam said during the discussion on the bill to operationalise a Land Boundary Agreement with Bangladesh. [related-post] “In sports, nobody would be able to beat us. Agar Bharat aur Pakistan ki cricket teamein ek hokar khelengi toh kya koi usey hara sakega?” Mulayam said. A mahasangh would end disputes among these three countries, bring prosperity, promote people-to-people contact and enhance trade. Firing on “our borders” leading to our “jawans getting martyred” would stop if this idea were taken forward, he said. He urged BJP veteran L K Advani to take the initiative “despite having not been made a minister in the government”, urged External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to make a beginning, and said he would meet the Prime Minister to discuss it with him. He blamed those “sitting in power” in Pakistan and Bangladesh from not letting this happen but stressed that the masses in both countries were ready for it. During a wedding in Aligarh, he said, some people from Pakistan had told him “there could be nothing better than this for them”.
