Kalyan Singh hits back at Mulayam Singh on Babri issue

Hitting back at Mulayam Singh Yadav for his apology to Muslims for aligning with those responsible for the Babri mosque demolition, former Hindutva icon Kalyan Singh today called him a traitor and said Samajwadi Party (SP) could never return to power as Muslims and the backward class had drifted away from it.

"Muslims and backwards have drifted away from the SP and it will never regain power. Mulayam is a traitor and he is in the habit of betraying people after using them", Kalyan told PTI over phone from Aligarh.

"During the Loksabha polls, Yadav wanted to take my support. Though my friends cautioned me against Yadav but I accepted his friendship keeping in mind interest of backward class," Singh said.

Advising Yadav to apologise to the backward class, Singh said the Muslims had not left Mulayam because of his proximity to him but due to his own "misdeeds".

Alleging that Yadav was of communal mentality, Singh said he always played with sentiments of crores of Hindus and adopted Muslim appeasement policy to use the community as a votebank only.

"I never went to the door of Mulayam. He came to me seven times at my Lucknow residence and four times at my Delhi residence," he said.