Charging the Congress with using the CBI as a ‘Damocles' sword’ in seat-sharing negotiations, Samajwadi Party on Tuesday said it would not give more seats to the grand old party in Uttar Pradesh ‘under any amount of pressure’.

On senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh's statement that his party had not gone to SP with a begging bowl, Amar Singh ‘I wish to remind him that we had not supported the UPA government led by his party out of our own need either’.

At a village situated 25 kms from Allahabad, Amar Singh said he was ‘deeply hurt by the shabby treatment’ by the government and its attitude ‘zyada seat do warna CBI ki talwar haazir hai (give more seats or else find the CBI hanging over your head like a Damocles' sword).’

"The Congress ought to remember that the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led party had offered its hand of friendship at a time when it had lost power in states like Punjab and Uttarakhand and the threat of the same was looming large over the Centre with the Left having pulled out. But Congress never respected that and victory in assembly polls in Rajasthan and Delhi seems to have gone into its head", he said.

The SP leader said his party will not leave more than ‘15 out of 80 seats’ in Uttar Pradesh and it was upto the Congress to decide whether it was interested in a ‘friendly contest at some more’.

"The problem is Congress thinks it had a valid claim to the 15 seats where we have decided not to field our candidates and it wants to be more accommodating. It needs to realise that we too could have laid our claim to more seats, leaving Congress asking for more", he added.

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