Lalitpur (UP): Samajwadi Party holds the key to the formation of the next Government at the Centre, party president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav said today (May 3, 2004), asserting that he would ensure the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was "wiped out" in the elections.

"Samajwadi Party holds the key to form the next Government at the Centre," Yadav told a rally and accused the BJP of misleading the people of the State by talking of ideological similarities between the two parties.

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"On the one hand Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee talks of ideological similarities and on the other leaders like Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani are threatening that the SP-led Government in the State would be pulled down after the Lok Sabha polls," he said.

Dismissing the possibility of Samajwadi Party supporting the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre in the event of a hung Parliament, he said the SP would ensure that the BJP was wiped out in the elections.

On the Congress threat to withdraw support to his Government, Yadav said, "It will be a great mistake on the part of the Congress if it withdraws support."

Yadav, however, claimed that his Government was firmly in the saddle and would not be affected even if the Congress chose to withdraw its support.