Horse trading in the biennial polls to the legislative council to be held on January 23 is now seems to be evident after Congress announced to contest the polls.
AICC general secretary and in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Madhusudan Mistri, announced that Party will contest the elections and there is no chance to support any other party candidate. “ We have 28 members in the UP assembly and 31 vote is required to win a seat hence there is no question of skipping the elections,” he told reporters here. Addressing media person, Mistri said that very soon the name of the candidate would be announced by the party high command as January 13 is the last date for filing of the nominations. Earlier it was reported that party will not contest the council elections as the leaders were not surethat the candidate could win it.
Ruling SP which had given one additional candidate in the elections, had already supported the Congress to win two Rajya Sabha seats from UP. Mistri said that there is no question of supporting SP candidate
in the council elections. Of the 12 seats going to polls, SP had already announced 8 candidates for the council polls while three candidates of the BSP had filed their nominations on Wednesday. BJP
with 41 members are slated to contest for one seat and if Congress gives one candidate then elections are certain which will lead to horse-trading to buy the MlAs.
Meanwhile Congress will launch state wide agitation in the State against the failures of the Narendra Modi government. “ We have started discussion with the district level leaders to plan a strategy
to launch the agitation following the failures of the Central government besides to oppose the anti-farmer’s land Acquisition Act and other issues,” announced Mistri. He said that the state Congress leaders are taking feed back from the districts about the strategies to be adopted to revive the party at the ground level, which would be submitted to the high command by February last. “ The feed back would also include the ways and means to launch an agitation against the Centre,” he said while adding that the party will oppose the unveilingof Godse statue in UP or other communal issues raised by the Hindu fundamentalist forces.
The leader, however, contradicted any move by the party to shed its ideologies or bow toward pro-Hindu agenda.” Congress will stick to is secular ideology and would not compromise on the issue,” he stated.
When asked about the removal of hoardings of UP CM Akhilesh Yadav by the Gujarat government, Mistri, who also hails from Gujarat, said that Narendra Modi do not want to see the hoarding of CM’s photograph in Gujarat.” We condemn such incidents which cannot be accepted in democracy,” he added. Mistri, however, refused to comment on the UP government engagement in the Saifai Mahatsov.
“ If the UP government is spending peoples’ money in the Mahatsov, then it is objectionable,” he said. The AICC general secretary was very critical on the statement of BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj, who said that Hindu women should have four children. “ It is surprising that no women organisation had opposed the
statement which is derogatory for the fair sex,” he stated. When his attention was drawn on BJP’s allegation that Congress was making pro-Pakistan statements, he said that the Modi
government at the Centre was working like a brother of Nawaj Shariff and to divert the attention of the people they are making such charges. Earlier in the day, Mistri along with UP Congress president Nirmal Khatri held two round of meeting with the party leaders here. In their first meeting they had discussion with the senior leaders over the ways and means to strengthen the party base and in the second meeting they heard the recommendations of the district and city presidents for the same.