Race on for more-secular-than-rest

For the first time, Singh admitted on record that his party had offered 15-16 seats when talks began a few months ago but the Congress demanded more seats. ‘‘We told the Congress it could retain the constituencies it won last time, plus those seats where it came second. This, together, amounted to 15 seats. But they insisted on at least 25 seats as it was a national party, which we found unreasonable,’’ Singh said. ‘‘Sonia Gandhi always listened to my points when we met, but never discussed the actual division of seats. I am surprised the same national Congress has readily accepted a measly four seats from Laloo Yadav in Bihar but were driving a hard bargain with us.’’

The two parties moved from talks of a tie-up to withdrawal of support to the state government in the past fortnight, all the time telling their minority votebank that the ‘‘other’’ party had failed a ‘‘secular alliance’’.

The minority community has been pushing for the alliance too. The latest appeal came today from the Milli Council, a conglomerate of several Muslim organisations, calling for a tie-up ‘‘to prevent communal and Fascist forces coming to power’’.

‘‘It is only when talks failed with the BSP that the Congress came to us,’’ says Singh. He expressed displeasure on the statement of Arjun Singh and Kapil Sibal, especially on withdrawal of support to the state government. ‘‘If Arjun Singh is today denying he ever threatened, why did he wait so long to clarify the matter?’’ said Singh.

However, the party is open to a compromise in Maharashtra because candidates haven’t filed their papers yet. ‘‘I met Sushilkumar Shinde three days ago. But unless Delhi gives the green signal, Maharashtra can’t do a thing,’’ he said.

Senior Congress leader Salman Khursheed, however, dismissed the allegations. ‘‘The SP cannot impose conditions on us. We can have our legitimate aspirations on our political strategies. I must add we never received any response from the SP when we made our proposal.’’