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Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday said the Congress had turned down his request for a tie-up for the upcoming assembly election in Gujarat.
The SP was left with no option but to go it alone in Gujarat, he said after a meeting of his party's parliamentary board in New Delhi.
Party general secretary Amar Singh said he had a meeting with Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Ahmad Patel to work out an electoral tie-up, but the two had instead questioned the strength of the SP in Gujarat.
They also asked on what basis the claim for seat adjustment was being made, he said.
Referring to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's recent comments that she was open to having a coalition government at the Centre, Yadav said if that was the case then the Congress should start the experiment with Uttar Pradesh.
He said he was not against Gandhi becoming the prime minister after the fall of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government in 1999. "I have always advocated a mili-juli sarkar [coalition government]."
Asked if he would now accept Gandhi as prime minister, Yadav remained noncommittal. "The Lok Sabha election is not being held now. Once it is there we will sit and discuss the modalities, as there are other parties as well, including the Left Front."
He demanded the dismissal of Uttar Pradesh Governor Vishnukant Shastri for "behaving as the spokesman of the BJP".
The SP chief said Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani had virtually taken over the prime ministership and the BJP was also in his grip.
Taking strong exception to the manner in which police roughed up Amar Singh in Lucknow on Monday, he attacked the Mayawati government and said: "There is a commission raj in UP while all the developmental work is confined to dustbin."
Amar Singh said that he would lodge a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission.
Yadav said the state government had slipped into minority on its own and his party had no hand in the events.
He said, "Shastri, who as governor of the state was a constitutional authority, has now become the most unconstitutional authority... he is not only biased, but also tells lies.
"The governor bypassed the established norm of first inviting the single largest party to form the government if there was a hung verdict... by keeping the assembly in suspended animation for two months initially, he helped money and muscle power to play a lead role in getting a BSP-BJP government installed."
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