Lucknow: Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress of ignoring his party despite the help it extended to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the time of last year's trust vote in parliament.
"The Prime Minister and the Congress have been ignoring the Samajwadi Party since the trust vote," Mulayam said in Lucknow while unveiling his party's manifesto for the April-May Lok Sabha polls.
"We were ready to give the Congress 17 seats out of which they could have easily won 14 with our help. But they did not agree to this and their fate in Uttar Pradesh now depends on themselves," he added. Uttar Pradesh has 80 Lok Sabha seats.
The Samajwadi Party support to the UPA during the July 22, 2008 trust vote was crucial in saving the government after the Left parties withdrew their support in protest against the government's decision to sign the nuclear deal with the US.
Mulayam Singh said his party, along with the Lok Janasakti Pary (LJP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), has bailed the UPA government out of trouble on many occasions.
"Whenever the government has been in trouble, I, Ramvilas Paswan and Lalu Prasad have bailed them out," he said.
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