Congress leaders against tieup for UP polls

Enthused by the party’s success in Bihar against the BJP, top leaders of the Uttar Pradesh Congress on Saturday were of the opinion that the party must contest alone in the coming state Assembly elections and project a chief ministerial candidate against chief minister Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and Ms Mayawati of the BSP.

About two dozen UP Congress leaders, including sitting MPs, former Union ministers, the PCC chief and the CLP leader, met here and discussed the strategy for the state polls. The meeting, lasting for over three hours, was presided by AICC general secretary in charge of the state Madhusudan Mistry.

The current mood in the party is not in favour of a pre-poll alliance as it feels that the BSP and the RLD, led by Ajit Singh, are “unpredictable” and may ally with the BJP after the polls. On the other hand, any understanding with the ruling Samajwadi Party will be counter-productive as the Congress will face the anti-incumbency of the Akhilesh Yadav government.

Besides, the SP’s stand in the Bihar elections put a question mark on whether it really wants to defeat the BJP, whose politics of communal polarisation has been indirectly helping the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led party.

The experiment of a grand alliance succeeded in Bihar mainly because its partners stood against the BJPand fought the battle with a killer instinct. However, such a formation is not possible in UP, Congress leaders feel.

The Congress has to fight against the “communal” politics of the BJP and the “casteist” politics of the SP and the BSP simultaneously. “Our strategy should be to focus on youth, women and minorities,” said an insider.

The Congress has decided to hold meetings of UP leaders in smaller groups in New Delhi after realising that such exercises are productive. “They get the floor... it’s an open house. The priority is to generate new ideas and programmes rather than to encourage blame games,” they said.

The routine of such meetings will continue for some time. After that, a coordination committee of 15 to 20 leaders will be constituted which will regularly meet, identify issues and work on a strategy accordingly, they said. According to informed sources, the current team in the PCC will continue till the polls.