With the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) all set to announce the composition of the Uttar Pradesh political alliance on Saturday, the Congress is ready with its plan to walk alone.
AICC sources said the party chief Rahul Gandhi, after due consultation with the State unit leaders, is prepared to go it alone in the politically crucial State. Amid talks of seat sharing for Lok Sabha polls from which the Congress seems to be out, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati will address a joint Press meet at Lucknow on Saturday.
The top leadership of both the parties had met in New Delhi last week to discuss broad parameters of an alliance to take on the BJP unitedly in the Lok Sabha elections.
Sources said both the SP and the BSP are planning to contest on 37 seats each out of 80 in Uttar Pradesh and plan to leave just two, Rae Bareli and Amethi, the bastions of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, for the Congress. Smaller parties like the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and the Nishad Party are also likely to be in the alliance. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP and its allies had won 73 of the 80 seats in UP.
Akhilesh and Mayawati decided to bury their hatchet and pool in their resources to contest three bypolls and won all raising their hopes that if they team up, they can pull voters away from the BJP. The mahagathbandhan arithmetic had worked in the bypolls as a consolidation of OBC, Dalit and Muslim votes powered joint Opposition candidates to victory in Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana last year.
A senior Congress leader said talk on a UP “mahagathbandhan” had been going on for a while but Congress members in the State are of the opinion that the party should go it alone as it has an independent identity among the people.
Rahul in an interview to an international newspaper on Thursday said the Congress idea is very powerful in Uttar Pradesh.
“So, we are very confident of our ability in Uttar Pradesh and we will surprise people,” he was quoted as saying.
The Gandhi scion’s comments were the first indication of the party’s Plan B after the regional players seemed to have deserted it. Rahul is expected to meet UPCC president Raj Babbar and AICC in-charge of party affairs in the State Ghulam Nabi Azad to deliberate on the matter on Sunday evening.
“A decision on who to join hands with always rests with the party high command, but we have already shared that workers and supporters want the Congress to go it alone in UP where it still has its own identity which is different from these parties,” said the leader.
He recalled that in 2009 Lok Sabha polls, when the situation was apparently against the Congress, the party got 21 seats in the State, paving the way for the return of the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre.
The more indicative of the Congress mind is the fact that Rahul had made it clear that the Congress cannot be underestimated.
“Congress has 45 seats in the present Lok Sabha which is more than any regional players. A ‘mahagathbandhan’ in the Lok Sabha elections need to be built around the party having a national face. We are still open to take along likeminded parties and they can come together with us,” said AICC leader.
He said the party is over century old and has an intact organisation that could be revived by going alone in the polls. However, sources said the Akhilesh-Mayawtai combine could field “weak” candidates on nine Parliamentary seats where maximum number of the Congress contestants can sail through while on rest of the 80 Lok Sabha seats the grand old party will field candidates who could cut into the BJP vote bank. .
The Congress returned to power in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan seeking support from BSP and SP after the party fell short of majority and later both Akhilesh and Mayawati expressed reservations in the Congress’ “attitude” by ignoring their legislators. Both the former UP CMs had questioned the “attitude” of Congress when they were looking forward for an alliance in MP, Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh were assembly elections concluded last month.