Backing Mulayam was a mistake: Congress

The Congress in Uttar Pradesh on Friday said it rued aligning with Samajwadi Party just to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party out of power.

The party said it would rectify the mistake in the coming Assembly elections.

"Our support to the SP government headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav was a well-intentioned one but we have realised that the ruling party misused the strength it derived from our backing.

"We will rectify our mistake by ousting the party from power in the Assembly elections," UP Congress Committee Vice-President Siraj Mehndi said.

He said the Congress, which had overthrown the BJP at the Centre, wanted to finish it off in the states too as it 'has been spreading communal hatred and it did not even have the strength to refuse the demand for release of terrorists to secure the release of people aboard a hijacked plane' in a reference to the Kandahar hijack.

He said the Congress succeeded in removing the BJP but the Mulayam regime proved no better and 'misused power in a blatant manner'.

Mehndi also attacked the SP government for neglecting the relatively backward eastern UP.

"We hoped that with a person like Amar Singh who hails form eastern UP gaining prominence, the region would get some attention. But he kept enjoying his privileges as chairman of the UP Development Council and remained indifferent to the very place where his roots lie," he said.