Ruling out any alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) or the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the Uttar Pradesh assembly election, the Congress has said that it would only tie up with smaller parties in the state.
“I will not even think about joining hands with big parties for Uttar Pradesh polls. Previous governments headed by the BJP, SP, BSP failed to live up to people’s trust,” Congress’ state chief Ajay Kumar Lallu told news agency PTI.
Lallu said that the Congress party was ready to make a comeback in the state. He added that in the eyes of the people of Uttar Pradesh, the BJP’s main challenger in the upcoming polls is the Congress and expressed confidence that the party would win the elections under the leadership of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and form the next government. The state party chief said that he was in touch with some small parties, but could not go into the details of any possible alliances.
Both the SP and BJP have also ruled out forging any alliance with the Congress in the upcoming polls with the former saying that it will join hands with smaller parts and the latter announcing to go it alone.
“I say with full confidence that when you look at the strength, organisation and struggle, it is clear that Congress is the voice of farmers, youth, labourers, for women’s security and of the village poor,” said Lallu.
Claiming that there is anger against the BJP over issues such as price rise, unemployment, farmers’ “plight”, poverty, reservation, “murder of democracy”, Lallu said he believes that this anger will manifest itself in the polls and common people were standing with the Congress. There is a strong undercurrent in favour of the Congress which will be visible in the elections, he said.
The Congress won just seven seats while its alliance partner SP bagged 47 seats in the 403-member assembly in the 2017 assembly polls. The BJP won a thumping mandate with 312 seats and the BSP bagged 19 seats.
