Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who is meeting Lalu Prasad Yadav of the RJD and Ram Vilas Paswan of the LJP in Lucknow tomorrow to formalise an alliance against the Congress for 120 Lok Sabha seats in UP and Bihar, today added to Congress unease when he said his party “will not object” if NCP chief Sharad Pawar emerges as a prime ministerial choice.

“In case Sharad Pawar gets the opportunity (to become PM), the Samajwadi Party will not object to it,” Mulayam Singh Yadav told reporters. He said the final call would be taken only after the election results. He maintained that the SP was still with the UPA and would not align with the Third Front.

With Pawar headed for Orissa tomorrow to attend a rally of the BJD, NCP, CPI and CPM — also there will be Prakash Karat, A B Bardhan and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee — the Congress, still smarting from the manner in which Lalu and Paswan dumped the party in Bihar by cornering 37 of the 40 seats in the state, urged the NCP chief to give the rally a miss.

Home Minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram, told reporters “it will be better if Pawar doesn’t share the dais with Third Front leaders.”

“The NCP has an alliance with the Congress in Maharashtra. Attempts are on to forge alliances with it in Goa and Gujarat... It will be better if he (Pawar) doesn’t share the dais with partners of the Third Front against the Congress in Orissa,” he said.

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