A day after the Union information and broadcasting ministry decided to defer the introduction of the conditional access system (CAS) for cable subscribers and go for phased implementation of the scheme, the Samajwadi Party jumped into the fray accusing the government of being the handmaiden of a foreign television network.

Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh told a press conference in Mumbai on Saturday evening that he had information that a large sum of money was paid to senior officials in the information and broadcasting ministry to rig the CAS for the benefit of this network.

Singh agreed that the Samajwadi Party had supported the CAS plan when it was formulated by former information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj. Swaraj, he said, had called on him personally and requested his party's support for the cause. "We supported it because it was in the consumer's benefit," he said.

But after Swaraj was replaced, the implementation of the CAS began to get delayed, he said. "We hear that the government is working for the benefit of one foreign TV channel," Singh alleged.

Amar Singh said the National Democratic Alliance government should make clear its stand on the CAS. If Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee does not make his government's stand clear, Singh warned, the Samajwadi Party would demand an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the entire issue.

Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was present at the press conference, hit out at Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani for expressing displeasure about the Punjab government targeting former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and trying to dig up dirt on him.

When a similar campaign was underway in Uttar Pradesh not so long ago, Yadav pointed out, with Mayawati's government registering 149 cases against him "in three minutes", Advani did not even react.

Yadav said his party would welcome any peaceful solution to the Ayodhya dispute, whether through dialogue or a court order. But he warned that it would not allow a mid-term election in Uttar Pradesh. He also said that while he remains open to an alliance with any party opposing communalism (read Congress), he will continue to make efforts to revive the third front.

On the question of sending Indian peace-keeping troops to Iraq, Yadav, a former Union defence minister, said the request should come from the United Nations, not the United States, and be cleared by Parliament.