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Congress intensifies exercise to identify candidates in UP

The Congress has intensified its exercise of identifying candidates for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, which are expected to be held in the next 14 to 15 months, after the party realised that i

The Congress has intensified its exercise of identifying candidates for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, which are expected to be held in the next 14 to 15 months, after the party realised that it might have to go alone.

The grand alliance experiment against the BJP has succeeded in Bihar but it may not in Uttar Pradesh for the simple reason that the ruling Samajwadi Party and the BSP see each other as the main player in this battle. On the other hand, the BJP will play every trick to ensure consolidation of Hindus with the calculation that it will weaken the caste politics of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati.

The Sonia Gandhi-led party cannot afford to play either a caste card or a religion card to garner votes. “No, we will not,” said a Congress strategist on Wednesday while drawing attention to how the Samajwadi Party has identified with the muscle power and the BSP with money power. “And the BJP cannot win elections without communal polarisation,” he said.

The Congress, which has conducted a pre-poll survey to see where it stands and learn the plus and minus points of the party, sent observers to each Assembly constituency before the concerned leaders sat together in Noida to identify candidates.

“We have involved block and district presidents, party observers for each districts, PCC chief and AICC general secretary in charge of UP,” he said. The party intends to complete this exercise for all the 403 Assembly constituencies. The final selection of candidates will be based on the findings of surveys, observers’ report, recommendation of block and district Congress and views of senior party leaders from the state, he said.

A section of the party foresees that the BSP will have to ally with the Congress, a decision in this regard could be taken two or three months before the polls. This is because the BSP cannot get a majority on its own.

No party would want to ally with the Samajwadi Party because of the anti-incumbency factor. The BJP will have to play the backward caste, non-Yadav, MBC card and in doing so, it will antagonise upper castes, some in the Congress feel.

The BJP did play the MBC card by allying with the LJP, RLSP and the HAM, led by Jitan Ram Manjhi, in the Bihar polls but it did not work.

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