New Delhi: The Presidential poll 2012 isn't the first time the Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) have been caught in a confrontation. In fact, Sonia and Mulayam share strained ties since 1999. Within hours of Sonia claming majority in 1999 after the collapse of the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led NDA government, Mulayam raised the foreign origin issue to stall her.
The mistrust bred by this one incident continues to guide the Samajwadi Party and the Congress relationship to date. With Mulayam teaming up with Mamata Banerjee to announce a parallel panel of three candidates for President polls, including the Prime Minister, the real candidate though is former president APJ Abdul Kalam.
Forced to sit outside the government in UPA-I with a block of 40 MPs, Mulayam, it seems, was waiting for the right moment to get even. He did not find a place even in UPA-II, and had to face defeat of his daughter-in-law, Dimple Yadav at the hands of Congress in Firozabad by-elections in 2009.
Now with a confortable majority in the UP Assembly, he is no longer dependent on Congress.
So in the President poll, teaming up with Mamata, he has propped up Kalam's name again, knowing fully well that candidature of the former president would be well received in the NDA.
Simultatinoulsy, he has still not closed all doors of negotiations with the UPA.
If Mulayam feels, as does Mamata, that an early poll would help them reap rich electoral dividends, they will force a contest in President poll. Both are banking on increasing their tally in the next Lok Sabha.
Mualyam will also be keeping an option of negotiating with the Congress and leaving Mamata in the lurch.
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