Kalyan burns his BJP bridge, hits out at ‘tired’ Vajpayee

He categorically declared that he would not go back to the BJP.

‘‘There is no question of my going back to the BJP. I have built my own house now, howsoever small, and I am happy staying in it,’’ he said.

The RKP leader, it seems, is yet to get over his bitterness over being unceremoniously expelled by the BJP.

And this took the form of taunting the Prime Minister. ‘‘The country is governed by a tired man, who has surrounded himself with retired officers,’’ he observed, pointing at senior ministers and power-centres around the Prime Minister. He accused Vajpayee of cowardice, ‘‘who only threatened to wage a decisive war on Pakistan and end terrorism but did not have the guts to carry it through.’’

He said Vajpayee was ‘‘only interested in his own chair and he is ready to distribute the rest of the chairs among those who help him occupy his. He is least bothered about the BJP’s future.’’

Regarding efforts to bring him back to the BJP, Singh confirmed that BJP members of the Rajya Sabha Dinanath Mishra and Balbir Punj and Swadeshi Jagran Manch’s S Gurumurthy ‘‘had met with me for five hours at Lucknow on April 22. I have great respect for these gentlemen. We had all agreed that we would not divulge the details of our discussions. Therefore, I will not disclose what transpired at our meeting.’’

It hasn’t certainly moderated his views about the party. He called for a broad national front to oust the saffron party from power. As for UP, he sad he would enter into a pre-election alliance with Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav for the Lok Sabha polls. ‘‘We will soon finalise our seat adjustment,’’ he added. He appealed to the Congress to help polarise the next elections against the BJP to save the country from ‘‘fascism, communalism and anarchism of the BJP on one hand and the poisonous casteism of the BSP on the other.’’

‘‘Where is the BJP?’’ asked Kalyan. ‘‘Which BJP should I return to? What is left of the BJP? It became bankrupt of principles long ago. It wll be stripped of power too. The BJP in UP has been paralysed down the waist. It is trying to walk with the crutches of the BSP, little realising that even gold crutches are no substitute for natural limbs.

‘‘The day they humiliated me by expelling me for six years, I had declared they were signing their death warrant. What I said then is coming true. They have been pushed to the margins,’’ he said. ‘‘With their own base gone, BJP leaders are holding on to the BSP thinking that they would ride piggyback on the shoulders of Mayawati in the Lok Sabha polls, but she is more likely to ditch them than stand by them. She practises palti maar politics — the BJP will see this happen.’’

As for himself, Singh said he would field candidates in Madhya Pradesh and Delhi during the coming assembly polls. When pointed out that it could undermine the prospects of Uma Bharati, a fellow-Lodh, in MP, he said ‘‘Umaji showed me the courtesy of not campaigning in my constituency in UP but she campaigned against me in the rest of the state. I would also spare her (constituency).’’

Meanwhile, the BJP, embarrassed by the leakage of the patch-up bid, contended that ‘‘there is no official or authorised move’’ to woo Kalyan Singh back. BJP parliamentary party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said, ‘‘If some people are talking to him, they are doing so personally. We have no knowledge of it.’’