A bitter verbal duel has ensued between Union Minister Beni Prasad Verma and the Samajwadi Party (SP), with the Congress leader swearing that he would do everything within his might to thwart the SP.
A bitter verbal duel has ensued between Union Minister Beni Prasad Verma and the Samajwadi Party (SP), with the Congress leader swearing that he would do everything within his might to thwart the SP from forming the government in UP, and the SP dubbing him a “borrowed commander” and a “goonda”.
“Beni Verma is a borrowed commander and now that he knows the Congress is losing badly, he wants to leave the party or be thrown out,” SP state president Akhilesh Yadav told reporters here on Monday. (Beni was once with the SP and Mulayam’s closest lieutenant before joining the Congress.) Yadav was reacting to Verma’s statement that the SP was a party of goondas, and that the Congress should prefer the BSP to the SP in giving support for government-formation.
Soon after Yadav’s statement, Beni logged in with his reaction, saying Akhilesh is still a kid in politics. Verma also said that he would ensure that the SP could not form a government in UP. He also repeated his statement on the SP being a party of goons, this time adding that SP general secretary and Mulayam’s younger son Shivpal Singh Yadav was the biggest “goonda” in the SP.
Shivpal reacted by saying that it was Beni who had been the biggest goon in the SP. “Our party is clean after Beni left. We have never patronized goons,” he told reporters.
Akhilesh and Shivpal separately addressed reporters a number of times during the day to assert that Mulayam would be the chief minister if the SP formed the government. Both also reiterated that the SP would get the majority on its own, and would not need any party’s support to form government.
Meanwhile, the Congress is having a tough time defending Verma’s statements. Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh and UP Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi had to repeat that the statements were Verma’s personal opinion. In Delhi, Salman Khurshid, questioned on this count, said: “He (Verma) has spoken his mind.”
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