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Congress tries dinner diplomacy to woo Mulayam
Published on Wed, May 21, 2008 at 22:59 in 
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New Delhi: The increasingly strained relationship between the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has opened the doors for the Samajwadi Party (SP).
The Union Law Ministry has recommended to the Election Commission that it drop a disqualification notice against SP General Secretary Amar Singh.
The Commission had served a notice to Singh on a petition by an advocate who claimed that the SP leader should be disqualified from the Rajya Sabha as he simultaneously held the post of chairperson of UP Development Council - an alleged violation of the Office of Profit rules.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is hosting dinner party on Thursday to mark four years of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
Anniversary dinners are hardly about food; they are about food for political thought. Last year, the third anniversary dinner was about the possibility of Left staying away.
This year it's about the SP sharing the table with the Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh and it's clear the party is looking forward to much more than food
"It's not necessary to have dinner there," Mulayam Singh Yadav, former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, said.
Already, the Law Ministry has recommended for no action against Amar Singh on a Office of Profit case pending with the EC.
And it is a fair indication whom the Congress is cosying up to now.
After all Mulayam and his Muslim vote will not cause problems for the Congress outside Uttar Pradesh. It is the BSP, which is the bigger, nationwide threat.
"All those people who subscribe to the basic ideology of keeping the communalists and the fundamentalists at bay are more than welcome to the celebrations," Manish Tewari, Congress spokesperson, said.
That makes the tilt obvious. The Congress isn't even expecting Mayawati at the fourth anniversary dinner.
In the Indian political scene, dinner diplomacy has been used many a times to mend fences with political adversaries.
With the possibility of Mulayam coming closer to the Congress and finding a common enemy in Mayawati, he will not only be looking at the crucial state of UP but also for a greater clout at the Centre.
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What type of politics is this. When Samajwadi Party was considered rival, you frame charges against it. And now you
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