The Samajwadi Party on Saturday distanced itself from Shahid Siddiqui, saying he is not part of the party, two days after his interview with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi made waves.
"The party wants to clarify that Siddiqui had left SP long back and joined BSP on whose ticket he contested Lok Sabha election from Bijnor," party's national general secretary and spokesman Ram Gopal Yadav said in a statement issued here.
He said that later Siddiqui joined the Rashtriya Lok Dal. "Siddiqui is not a SP member and has nothing to do with the party," Yadav said asking the media not to project him as SP leader.
Yadav said terming Siddiqui as a SP leader was 'outrightly wrong'.
Siddiqui, who is the editor of Urdu weekly Nai Duniya, had recently interviewed Modi in which the Gujarat Chief Minister had refused to apologise for the post-Godhra riots and instead said he would prefer to be hanged if found guilty.
In an image makeover exercise, Modi had said in the interview, "If my government had done this (post-Godhra riots), I should be hanged in public in such a way that it remains a lesson for the next 100 years so that nobody dares to do it (such a crime)".
Siddqiqui was a SP MP before he joined the RLD only to rejoin the Samajwadi Party in January this year.
Ram Gopal Yadav said that Siddiqui may be interested in an alliance with Modi.
SP leader Azam Khan said, "In politics neither friendship nor enmity is permanent. But we can't maintain friendship with a murderer like Narendra Modi. Modi is an enemy of humanity. I feel this is wrong. It is not right for a person like Modi to have been given an opportunity to give his opinion to a major Urdu daily."
Reacting to the SP's move to distance itself from Siddiqui, BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain said, "As a journalist it is not necessary to only publish the views of those you agree with. His paper won't only publish news related to Mulayam Singh Yadav.''
"As an editor, he has the right to interview whoever he wishes. However, it is an old habit of SP to alter their actions to cater to their votebank. How can you demand clarifications and not listen when answers are provided," he said.
Gujarat BJP leader Yatin Oza said, "For the first time someone has asked Modi about his view. For this removing a senior member of the party is politics of minority appeasement and hypocrisy. This is an autocratic way of functioning. ''