Lucknow: Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav on Wednesday accused Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati of indulging in horse-trading of MPs, offering them money to vote against the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in the July 22 trust vote.

"Several crores of rupees are being offered to Lok Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh on the directions of Mayawati. Even those (parliamentarians) who are serving jail sentences are being blatantly offered money," Yadav told reporters here.

After the Left parties withdrew their support to the Manmohan Singh government following their differences over the India-US nuclear deal, the Samajwadi Party has come to back the government in the confidence motion in the Lok Sabha next week.

Significantly, the SP allegation comes a day after the state's Public Works Department Minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui met jailed parliamentarian Uma Kant Yadav of Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), who is in Fatehgarh jail in Farrukhabad district.

Yadav said the Lok Sabha members being approached also included Atiq Ahmed and Afzal Ansari, both serving jail sentence. Both were elected on Samajwadi Party tickets but Ahmed was expelled from the party early this year.

Asked whether the Samajwadi Party would join the government, Yadav categorically replied, "We will continue to support the UPA government from outside and will not join them in any case."

On his party's possible alliance with the Congress for the next Lok Sabha polls, Yadav evaded the question saying, "It is too early to comment on the Lok Sabha polls."

The former chief minister also accused the BSP government of carrying out attacks on his party's legislators and activists. "The brutal attack on Samajwadi Party's MLA Irfan Solanki was planned by the BSP. Our party men and supporters are being physically harassed across the state," alleged Yadav.

Even the students, who supported the Samajwadi Party for its democratic policies, were not being spared by BSP, he said. The BSP government had registered around 11,500 criminal cases falsely implicating the students and party activists, he said.

Yadav alleged that Mayawati was patronising criminals, anti-social elements and corrupt officers. "Mayawati has teamed up with all the corrupt government officers to rule the state. A number of tainted officers like the Lucknow district magistrate and senior IPS officers are supporting Mayawati."

If voted to power, the Samajwadi Party will teach a lesson to such corrupt officers, he said. BSP state president Swami Prasad Maurya refuted Yadav's charges, including that of horse-trading.

"The charges being made by Mulayam Singh Yadav, Amar Singh and other Samajwadi Party leaders are baseless, disparaging and malicious," Maurya told reporters here soon after Yadav's press conference.

"It is the Samajwadi Party and leaders like Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh who indulge in horse-trading and can fall to any level to gain political mileage," he said.

Maurya said it was ironical that the Samajwadi Party was shaking hands with Rashtriya Janata Dal, a part of the UPA, whose leader had once called Amar Singh a "power broker".

Source : IANS