'BJP is an outsider in UPA-Left marriage'

New Delhi: The Congress on Monday likened BJP to the "outsider" in the marriage between UPA and the Left.

Telling BJP not to fish in troubled waters of the nuclear stand-off, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, "The BJP is the 'woh' in this 'Pati'-'Patni' relationship.

"It should act like the third party that it is and only sit aside and get a view of what is happening from the sidelines," he added.

"Whether we are courting or married, they are the third party", Singhvi said during a discussion at the India-US Forum of Parliamentarians here.

Asked whether the Government would go ahead with the deal even if the Left stuck to its opposition, he said "we do not see it as a binary win-lose situation".

"The Government is confident of surviving and the Left has also not said that its days are numbered," Singhvi said.

Top leaders of both the Left and Congress had recently compared the Congress-Left relationship to a marriage more than once.