Congress uncertain on 'mahagathbandhan'

Amid hints that arch rivals BSP and Samajwadi Party (SP) may agree to join hands to take on the BJP, the Congress on Sunday sent mixed signals on the formation of an ‘anti-BJP front’ with its leaders taking contradictory stands on the issue.

While senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad supported the idea, UP unit chief of the party Raj Babbar said that the issue needed a discussion and that the feelings of the workers must get preference over any talk of alliance.

The two leaders were here to review the party’s dismal performance in the recent Assembly polls in the state. The Congress, which had contested 105 seats, could win only seven.

The presidents of various district units of the party, who also attended the review meeting, said that the party’s alliance with SP cost them dear in the polls.

Babbar had expressed reservations about the tie-up with SP even before UP Assembly polls, but his views were ignored by the central leadership.

Babbar also said that there was a difference between the SP and the Congress. “We also take into account the national political scene,” he remarked.