In that uncertain phase between the last vote being cast and the first result being declared, politicians looking for partners speak in many tongues. But Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav didn’t mince words when he was asked if he would back an NDA coalition: ‘‘Hame gaali maat dijiye. Ye mere liye gaali hi hai (Don’t abuse me. Such a suggestion is like abusing me.)’’At a quiet retreat on Teen Murti Lane, where CPI(M)’s Harkishen Singh Surjeet was trying to expand the secular front, Mulayam ran into the Congress’s Jaipal Reddy. It wasn’t exactly a coincidence. As Surjeet said: ‘‘With (me) calling, nobody comes. They meet me separately.’’ More significant were Mulayam’s comments on who he would suport and what price he would extract: ‘‘I am not in the race for either Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister.’’Throughout the hour-long meeting, the SP leader seemed to be leaning towards the secular front — though statements from Amar Singh indicated the party was keeping its options open.While Amar Singh had made it clear that SP did not see PM Atal Behari Vajpayee as an enemy, Mulayam said Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origins did not concern his party. ‘‘Pradhan Matri kaun hoga nahin hoga, yeh hamara election ka theme nahin tha (Who’s going to be the Prime Minister was not the issue of our campiagn),’’ said Mulayam.He said what role his party played would depend on how many seats it got. It was Mulayam’s refusal to back a Sonia Gandhi-led government in 1999 that pushed the country to elections that brought Vajpayee to power.Meanwhile Surjeet, showing no signs of the fact that he was just out of hospital, continued coordination. Former PM Deve Gowda dropped by for a chat. Jaipal Reddy, meanwhile, insisted his meeting with Surjeet was ‘‘routine’’. On whether Congress preferred the BSP to SP, Reddy said: ‘‘All secular parties should be together. At this point our aim is to dislodge the NDA government.’’ Surjeet has his hands full, though. ‘‘Pehle second front banane dijiye, uske baad third front ko dekhenge (Let’s form a second front first. Then we’ll see about a third front).’’
