We won't join UPA, but help it pass budget: SP

Kolkata, March 24 (IANS) Reiterating Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's prediction that Lok Sabha elections could be held "after a year", its general secretary Kiranmoy Nanda Saturday said their prty will help Congress to pass the general budget but not join the UPA government.

Nanda rubbished speculation over the formation of a pre-poll Third Front, saying such a front could only see the light of the day after the next Lok Sabha battle.

"The Congress-led UPA (United Progressive Alliance) is in great crisis. It may fall any day due to the inner squabbling. The election can happen anytime after a year," Nanda told reporters here.

The Congress, he added, was "engulfed in corruption. It is following anti-people policies".

Asked why his party had bailed out the Congress on many, Nanda replied: "It is our compulsion. If we don't support the Congress, the government will fall and BJP will come to power. We don't want that. So we have to support,"

But he added that the SP won't join the UPA government.

"We will not join the UPA, but we will help Congress to pass the budget in parliament."

He added that the SP would contest Lok Sabha elections in many states apart from Uttar Pradesh.

"We will fight in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Orissa, Bihar and West Bengal. We want to expand our base."

Will the SP tie up with Trinamool Congress in the near future?

Replied the former minister in the erstwhile Left Front regime: "We are anti-BJP and anti-Congress. In case of Trinamool they have opposed the government on the issues which we have also opposed. So we welcome their views. We want good relations with all non-BJP, non-Congress parties".