Congress-SP war intensifies ahead of UP polls

With both of them trying to project themselves as the party which can challenge the might of BJP in Uttar Pradesh, the war of words between Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) has intensified ahead of the next assembly polls in the state, which are barely four months away.

Interestingly both Congress and SP have accused each other of being ''hand in glove'' with the BJP in UP and making the electoral contest easy for the saffron party by dividing 'anti-BJP' votes in the state.

SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav, who has been on a 'Vijay Rathyatra', has been targeting both BJP and Congress in his rallies. ''BJP and Congress are one and the same....both have misused CBI, ED and other central agencies against their rivals in their regimes,'' he said at a public meeting at Hardoi.

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The SP president had also said that Congress was trying to 'help' the BJP by dividing anti-BJP votes in the state.

Akhilesh's allegations were rubbished by Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra during her rally at Gorakhpur on Sunday. ''We will die but will never join hands with the BJP,'' she said.

The grand old party, on Monday, released a photo on its Twitter handle showing Akhilesh, SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath together.

''Shaandar tasveer...ED, Income Tax se bachne ke liye'' (Beautiful picture...trying to save themselves from ED and IT), Congress captioned the photo and termed Akhilesh and Mulayam as 'fake' socialists.

Congress also referred to the statement of Mulayam in the Lok Sabha before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls wishing prime minister Narendra Modi another stint as PM to buttress its contention that SP and BJP were engaged in a ''fixed match'' and that the people of the state knew it.

''Now that there is no hope of any kind of electoral understanding between SP and Congress, each of them is trying to portray itself as the main opposition party in UP,'' said a Lucknow based political analyst.