Congress received yet another setback in the electoral battle when their ‘Ekla Chalo’ move boomeranged with both the candidates for bypolls in the Gorakhpur and Phulpur losing their deposits.
Interestingly, the Party earlier go in alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in the last Assembly polls but got the biggest setback when they could not even touch the double figure mark winning just 7 seats. This time, they decided to go alone and take a lead in announcing the candidate for the bypolls, but the people once again rejected their move and ensured a humiliating defeat.
Sources said that many leaders now termed Raj Babbar as most unlucky for the Uttar Pradesh Congress and demanded that at least now the high command should take no time to shunt him out and hand over some other responsibility. Rs Rs Raj Babbar was brought to give new oxygen to Uttar Pradesh Congress in 2016 after the Party could just manage to win two-Rae Bareli and Amethi Parliamentary seats in 2014 under Nirmal Khatri but in last Assembly elections in 2017, the Party received a biggest setback by winning 7 seats”, pointed a senior leader of the Congress while reacting to defeat of the Party in the by-polls.
He said that Raj Babbar then made a mistake for going in alliance with Samajwadi Party and now when they should fight together sharing one seat each in the by-polls, Babbar decided to go alone and now the outcome is before everyone. “Our candidate got less votes then even Independent Atiq Ahmed in Phulpur”, the leader said adding that now before making any analysis of defeat, the Party should remove Babbar and gave responsibility to someone other so that new strategy for fighting with full strength in 2019 lok Sabha elections could be drawn.
Former Member of Parliament from Congress while reacting to the defeat of the Party in the bypolls said that time has now come that all the three Opposition Parties, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress should come on one platform and draw a well designed strategy to consolidate the Parties vote bank so that just like bypolls, BJP could be wiped out in the next general elections too. “The leaders of all the three Parties should discuss the seat sharing formula in Uttar Pradesh and then start a campaign to defeat BJP in this biggest state of the country having maximum 80 Parliament seats’, asserted former MP saying that success in UP means formation of a non-BJP Government in the Centre.