Congress ready to fight solo in UP, hints Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday flexed his muscles by hinting that the Congress could go alone in Uttar Pradesh and cautioned the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party not to “un-derestimate Congress.”  

The Congress president, bolstered by the wins in Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh in December without entering into a pre-poll alliance with the SP or BSP, said in an interview to Gulf News, “We are trying to bring the Opposition together… I have heard some statements in the media but we are going to work together and make sure that we defeat Mr Modi. But I just want to say again — to underestimate the Congress in UP is a big mistake.”

The Congress president’s statement comes a few days after the SP and the BSP gave contours to an electoral alliance ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. His comments are the first indication of the party’s Plan B after the regional players decided to desert it. In 2014 elections, the Congress had won two out the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP.

Asked whether keeping the Congress out of the alliance in Uttar Pradesh would be an advantage for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he said, “From our past experiences we can say in cases where the Congress had fielded candidates against the SP-BSP alliance, we did not face any problem in defeating the BJP. Rather, there have been instances where the Congress had not put up its candidate in a seat and the BJP got its vote share.”

He further added, “Our first aim is to defeat (Prime Minister) Mr Narendra Modi. There are states where we are very strong and we are the primary party and are contesting the BJP directly. There are states where there are possible alliances — Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Bihar… where we are working out an alliance formula.”

The Congress president also said he was confident of stitching together alliances in several states.