Senior leaders in the UP Congress have been asked to ensure the party’s victory in at least two Assembly seats in the coming battle to ensure a hung Assembly and thus make the party relevant.
Senior leaders in the UP Congress have been asked to ensure the party’s victory in at least two Assembly seats in the coming battle to ensure a hung Assembly and thus make the party relevant.
“We have a number of senior leaders who had worked with Indiraji, Rajivji, and now Soniaji and Rahulji. If they take responsibility of a minimum of two Assembly seats and ensure their victory, then we can reach about 100 seats,” said a Congress strategist. In the 15th LS, the Congress had won 22 seats in UP on its own. Although the party has been out of power in the state for more than 25 years, its strength has remained nine-plus.
Reports from the state suggest that the ruling Samajwadi Party is facing anti-incumbency and getting confined to the Yadav community. A section in the SP feels the party will try to expand its social base with the help of RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and some minor regional players in the state, but this will not help it. The BJP’s polarisation plank could help the BSP, led by Ms Mayawati. But a “faceless” BJP could help the BSP, SP and the Congress because it will split the minority, upper caste, and even backward caste vote banks, they feel. “We are ready with a list of 370 candidates and to face the elections on our own,” the strategist said. But in reality a hung Assembly could make the Sonia Gandhi-led party relevant in UP, and achieving this might be possible if the Congress gets about 100 seats. Prominent leaders like Sri Prakash Jaiswal, Salman Khurshid, Pramod Tiwari, Capt. Satish Sharma, Dr Sanjay Singh, Jitin Prasada, R.P.N. Singh, Rajeev Shukla, P.L. Punia, Raj Babbar, Beni Prasad Verma, Pradeep Jain, K. Manvendra Singh, Choudhary Bijendra Singh and Ratna Singh could deliver, insiders said. The UP Congress on Saturday threatened to “gherao” PM Narendra Modi’s parliamentary office in Varanasi if payments worth Rs 1,000 crore under the MGNREGA job scheme for 2015-2016 are not cleared in one month.
The Congress launched a campaign to ensure implementation and monitoring of the flagship programmes of the previous UPA government. “As a first move under the campaign, we give a month’s time to the government to disburse the payments, worth Rs 1,000 crore, to the labourers under MGNREGA, and if it is not done we will gherao the parliamentary office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi,” UPCC president Nirmal Khatri said in Lucknow.
