New Delhi, July 24: Rahul Gandhi’s fight to dislodge Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh is gathering steam as well as forces as smaller parties are merging with the Congress.
The Jan Morcha of late V.P. Singh on Thursday merged with the Congress after a meeting between the party’s president Ajeya Singh and the AICC general secretary.
In the backdrop of the Congress’s aggressive steps to revitalise and reorganise the party in Uttar Pradesh, the BSP too has adopted a belligerent stand in and outside Parliament, attacking the Congress-led government.
On Thursday, BSP members forced adjournments of both Houses protesting against the Home Ministry’s alleged move to downgrade the NSG security for Mayawati.
The BSP supremo has announced a nationwide campaign against the UPA government, while the Congress is planning a campaign blitz in the state.
It will later ask Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to expedite UP’s pending development projects.
This is a ploy to counter Mayawati, who has been accused of diverting the state’s development funds to build statues and memorials.
The Congress is also planning a dossier on atrocities on Dalits. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) chairman Buta Singh, who has collected the necessary data, will help the party in this front.
“The largest number of atrocities against the SCs is reported from Uttar Pradesh. Chief Minister Mayawati should address this problem,” Buta Singh recently said.
The party’s anti-Mayawati agenda also has a “jail bharo andolan” scheduled from August 1, in case the UP government refuses a CBI probe into the attack on state Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi by goons allegedly led by a BSP MLA. As the political temperature rose in UP, Rahul met home minister P. Chidambaram to contain the clashes between BSP and Congress activists in the volatile state. Congress supporters in his constituency, Amethi, had staged violent protests earlier this month against erratic power supply, after which the police lodged FIRs against 235 people.
The Congress leader incharge of UP, Digvijay Singh, said Rahul would chair a meeting of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee on August 4 to take stock of the situation. The Amethi MP had also planned to divide the state into four zones for better management. Each zone will be headed by a president of the Youth Congress.
The BSP and the Congress are at loggerheads in view of the August 18 by-elections to four assembly seats. Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday discussed the strategy for the bypolls with senior party leaders – AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh, party secretary Parvez Hashmi, CLP leader Pramod Tiwari and Avinash Pandey.
Sources said candidates have been shortlisted to contest the elections in Moradabad (West), Malihabad, Bidhuna and Morna. In all, there are 13 vacant Assembly seats in the state.
Rita – censured by the party for her derogatory remarks against Mayawati – was not present at the talks. She said in Lucknow the Congress would go for the kill in the Assembly elections slated for 2012. “Our focus is to form the next government in the state by sidelining the communal and casteist forces,” she added.
–Agencies