New Delhi: Amid speculation that Congress is reaching out to his party, Janata Dal (United) chief Sharad Yadav today dismissed as “totally baseless and wrong” reports that he had a meeting with Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel.
“I am surprised to know that I had a meeting with Ahmed Patel. This is totally baseless and wrong,” Yadav said in a statement.
Reports had claimed yesterday that Patel met Yadav during the day triggering speculation of the Congress reaching out to the second largest NDA partner at a time when DMK has parted ways with the UPA.
Narrating the sequence of events, Yadav said that he yesterday went to meet Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath who wanted to know his views about the resolution on Sri Lanka.
“The moment I entered his room in Parliament House, I found that Rajiv Shukla, Ahmed Patel and few other MPs were already there. After wishing me, they immediately left. I discussed the Sri Lankan Parliamentary Resolution with Nath just for two minutes and suggested that an all party meeting may be called to know their views about this case,” Yadav said.
Speculation about the Congress reaching out to JD-U was triggered earlier by the positive vibes during Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia earlier this week, demanding special category status for Bihar.
Congress had shunned relationship with RJD of Lalu Prasad and LJP of Ramvilas Paswan and had gone alone in the last Parliamentary and 2010 Assembly elections. It managed to win only two seats in the Lok Sabha polls, including that of Speaker Meira Kumar from the state and four in the Assembly out of a total of 243 seats.
