Throwing a hint that Congress would be a major player in the maha-gathbandan (grand alliance) in Uttar Pradesh, state Congress president Raj Babbar said hat the party is ready to sacrifice to any extent to defeat the BJP in the coming lok Sabha elections in the state. “We have done it in Karnataka and prevented BJP from coming to power. In the lok Sabha elections too the party can go to any extent for an opposition unity to defeat the BJP,” he said.
Addressing a press conference along with party’s national spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi and national media coordinator Rohan Gupta, Babbar said though the party’s experiment of forging an alliance with the Samajwadi Party in assembly elections was not good still Congress will do anything to defeat the BJP. Though admitting that party high command would decide on the mahagathbandan in UP Babbar said “it is up to the party leadership to decide on the alliance and the number of seats to be contested.” He said Congress had already shown its intention in the Kairana lok Sabha bypolls where even after party’s huge support base no candidate was given against the opposition candidate. This united strategy led to the defeat of the BJP. “In Gorakhpur and Phulpur lS bypolls though Congress contested but when it saw that SP was in direct fight against BJP , our candidates lowered their campaign for easy run for the opposition candidate,” he said. However Babbar did not give any answer to the queries seeking his comment on the SP and BSP leadership not ready to take Congress onboard and had hinted to give only Rae Bareli and Amethi seats to them. Meanwhile, Priyanka Chaturvedi alleged that the Yogi Adityanath government in UP, on the directions of the Centre, was trying to dilute the land Acquisition Act, made by the UPA government. “The announcement of the UP government to provide government land to the industrialist just on circle rate shows the conspiracy of the BJP to benefit their industrialist friends,” she said. Announcing that Congress will launch an agitation against such move , Chaturvedi said Narendra Modi and the BJP governments in the states are working against the interest of the farmers and poor. Reacting on the Narendra Modi’s comment on opposition at Sant Kabir Mahanirvana sthal Maghar in UP on Thursday, she said PM was just trying to cover up his failures by blaming the opposition.