JOIN US"I have been authorised and directed by Mulayam Singh Yadav, national President and Leader of the Samajwadi Party, to offer our support for the formation of UPA government under the leadership of Manmohan Singh," Amar Singh said in the letter submitted to the President in Rashtrapati Bhavan.
SP has 23 MPs in the 15th Lok Sabha and claims the support of two independents.
Samajwadi Party could not finalise a pre-poll tie-up with Congress in Uttar Pradesh and contested as part of the Fourth Front. RJD and LJP were the other two parties of this front.
Yadav had said yesterday in Mainpuri that his party was ready to sit in the opposition, However, Amar Singh told reporters later that SP would support the new government.
Asked whether Congress had sought his party's support or if SP was giving it on its own, Singh said, "When I and Mulayam Singh had gone to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a couple of days back, he had asked for our support. Yesterday also when the PM called me up, he sought our support."
Amar Singh, however, refused to comment on whether SP's support would be issue-based or unconditional.
"You can decide by yourself what kind of support we are lending," he told reporters after meeting the President and giving her the letter of support.
He said the "PM values the support lent by SP to UPA on the nuclear deal last year and even described our decision to do so, as historical".
"I feel that just like the earlier SP-Congress coordination committee, now also there should be a mechanism in place, if we are invited," Singh said.
On Mayawati's offer to give outside support to the UPA government, Singh said, "BSP's offer to give outside support is an act of political opportunism, while we are not after power."
Singh also claimed that Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad and Ramvilas Paswan were very much together, when asked as to why he had come alone to meet the President.
"Mulayam, Lalu Prasad and Paswan all are together. None of them is separate from each other. Whatever decisions we will take, we will consult Lalu. Mulayam could not come as he is in Mainpuri," the SP leader said.