Open-minded on forging alliance with other parties for Uttar Pradesh polls: Priyanka Gandhi

She said that the party's aim is to defeat BJP and that other parties also need to be open-minded

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Sunday that her party was yet to take a decision on forging alliances in the forthcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh due early next year but she said that the party is "open-minded" on the issue.

''We are open-minded on the issue of alliance but we have not been benefited by the alliances,'' Priyanka, who is also the state unit in-charge, told reporters.

''Our aim is to defeat the BJP....we will take a call on this issue keeping in view the pros and cons of such a decision...we, of course, will not do anything that damages the prospects of our party,'' she said when pressed further on the issue.

Priyanka also sought to rubbish the BJP charge that she was a ''political tourist''. ''It is nothing but propaganda by the BJP... it wants to portray me and Rahul Gandhi as non-serious politicians....it's not true...we have always taken up the issues concerning the common man and fought for them,'' she added.

During discussions on Saturday, senior leaders told Priyanka that Congress should go solo in the next assembly polls. ''Congress must not enter into an electoral alliance with any party in the upcoming UP assembly poll.....we will fare better if we contest the polls on our own,'' a senior UP Congress leader present at the meeting had told DH.

Congress, which had contested the 2017 assembly polls in the state in alliance with the SP, could win only seven seats. The SP had managed to win 47 seats.

SP president Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati have already declared that their parties will not have an electoral alliance in the 2022 polls. Akhilesh, however, said that SP could leave a few seats for the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and some other smaller outfits.

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