BANGALORE, DEC 7: Former Prime Minister and UF Steering Committee Chairman H D Deve Gowda on Saturday said that the constituents of the United Front (UF) would remain united in fighting both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. The UF would also not consider any kind of an electoral alliance with either of these parties, he said.

Addressing his first-ever press conference in the State since he stepped down as Prime Minister seven months ago, Gowda decried efforts by the Congress to ``victimise the DMK'' following baseless allegations made by the Jain Commission. But ``we have not succumbed to the Congress tactics'' and the UF is now determined to stay united in taking on both the Congress and the BJP at the polls, he added.

When asked specifically about Samajwadi Party (SP) President Mulayam Singh Yadav's reported statements regarding an alliance with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, he said the SP leader had himself denied these reports. Moreover, ``Mulayam Singh Yadav is a mature politician and a committed member of the UF'', he said.

Attacking the Congress for trying to destabilise the UF government first by seeking his removal and then by asking for the removal of the DMK, he said there was a ``lot of difference between what they (the Congress) say and do''. After extending an offer of unconditional support, it had been arbitrarily withdrawn within 11 months of the government coming to power. First ``they said that the UF government should remain but I should go'' and later they said that the ``Gujral government had to go because of its stubbornness''.

The previous actions of the Congress are well-known in terms of withdrawal of support to both the Charan Singh and the Chandrashekar governments. This time also it is clear that the Congress was not so much concerned with Rajiv Gandhi's assassination as much as coming to power. But their efforts were thwarted by the united stand of the UF, he said.

The Congress which talks of the need for a stable government and the failure of coalition governments to provide it, has itself gone for a coalition arrangement in UP where it sought to install the N D Tiwari-led government with the help of Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).Now the party wants to form electoral alliances with the RJD, with Vaghela, the AIADMK, Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Muslim League, he said. ``If they take their help, can they call it a single party government? Do they then have the potential for stability?''.

Similarly the BJP too had accused the UF coalition of being a failure. ``But how many parties do they themselves have as alliance partners? The Shiv Sena, the Akalis, Bansi Lal's Haryana Vikas Party and the Samta Party''. Both Vajpayee and Advani also speak of corruption, but they openly admit that they had managed to woo 42 MPs from the Congress but were short of the required 48 to form the Government at the Centre after the UF government fell.

Stating that there were now three major political formations in the country - the UF, a Congress-led alliance, and a BJP-led alliance, Gowda said it was not likely that in future any party will get a two-thirds majority. In the past also, it was only in 1971 under Indira Gandhi's leadership and subsequently under Rajiv Gandhi, that the country had seen a single party get a clear majority, he added.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.