23 July 2008 Lucknow (PTI): The BSP on Wednesday rebutted allegations of the Samajwadi Party which claimed that one of its party MPs was offered Rs 30 crores to vote against the UPA in its trial of strength in the Lok Sabha on July 22.

Terming SP General Secretary Amar Singh's charges that the BSP had offered the amount to the MP as baseless and a bundle of lies, Cabinet Minister Swami Prasad Maurya said the BSP did not believe in horse-trading.

"Singh is infamous for horse-trading. BSP is a party of principle and follow the ideology of Dr B R Ambedkar and Kanshiram," Maurya told reporters here.

He said the SP MP in question, Akshay Pratap Singh alias Gopalji, had "criminal background" would have to face consequences of his "misdeeds".

Asked whether state government would order a probe into Amar Singh's allegations, Maurya said everyone knew about the SP general secretary and his "reality" but did not elaborate.

Maurya further criticised the last Samajwadi Party government saying that it had catapulted itself to power by engineering defections from the ranks of BSP MLAs. Now, the SP had lost credibility among the people, he claimed.

Asked about PWD Minister Nasimuddin Siddiqui's meeting with jailed BSP MP Umakant Yadav, who was expelled from the party in Farukhabad yesterday, Maurya said that Siddiqui met him as he was still a party MP.