Ahead of the assembly election in Uttar Pradesh; the Congress on Sunday said that the party will forge an alliance with smaller parties and there will be no tie with Samajwadi Party (SP) of Akhilesh Yadav and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of Mayawati.
In an interview with a news agency, the PTI Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu claimed the Congress as the main challenger to the BJP. He said that the party is emerging as a strong opposition force under the leadership of Priyanka Gandhi. It will forge alliances with smaller parties and this alliance will form the government in 2022 in Uttar Pradesh.
Uttar Pradesh along with Goa, Manipur, Punjab, and Uttarakhand will go for February or March next year. However,the ABP-CVoters Survey has predicted the return of the Yogiraj.
The Congress had contested the last assembly election of Uttar Pradesh held in 2017 in an alliance with the Samajwadi Party of Akhilesh Yadav. Akhilesh Yadav was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and his father has been an MP as well as chief minister of the state as well. Similarly, Rahul Gandhi at that time was MP from Amethi, a seat his family has won for generations. His mother also is an MP from Rae Bareli. His grandfather was born in Prayagraj and hence the family has always claimed to have roots in UP. Which is they during the 2017 election campaign, Yadav and Rahul Gandhi both referred to themselves as ‘UP ke Ladke’ (UP boys) like they were part of some elite club.
But the alliance could not withstand the phenomenal surge of the BJP which won over 300 seats in the house of 403. Since then, Akhilesh Yadav has been nursing a wound and repenting the alliance with the Congress was a mistake. He even lost a good number of seats due to the Congress.
Nevertheless, there is no permanent friend and foe in the politics and there are instances in Indian politics that several opposition parties ‘sworn enemies to each other’ have joined hands against the BJP.
But what Ajay Kumar Lallu has said holds no significance at least at this moment since Akhilesh Yadav on several occasions in past has ruled out any alliance either with the Congress or the Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati. He stated that he had no good experience with these two parties.
Akhilesh Yadav too has said that he will forge alliance with the smaller parties. He had claimed that talks were going with many smaller parties.
Mayawati too has announced to contest upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand alone.