Amid the buzz of a Bihar-style mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Assembly polls due in early 2017, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is the AICC member in charge of Uttar Pradesh party affairs, on Saturday categorically denied any such possibility.
Mr. Azad, who was on his way to Bijnor to attend a public meeting, said here that the Congress was not planning any alliance with any political party before the Assembly polls.
This comes amid a strong buzz that the Samajwadi Party, the Congress and the Rashtriya Lok Dal were in the final stages of forming an electoral alliance.
Baseless rumours
Mr. Azad termed the “rumour” of alliance as the handiwork of political parties which were “jealous” of the Congress’ rise and the “success of Rahul Gandhi’s election campaign in the State”.
Addressing party workers who were having a tough time dealing with reports of a possible alliance in the absence of any official direction from the high command, Mr. Azad said, “I want to make it clear that we are not planning any alliance with either the ruling Samajwadi Party or any other political party ahead of the 2017 Assembly polls.”
“We are planning and preparing to fight the elections alone and completely on the basis of hard work of each one of our workers on the ground,” he said.
‘Jealous at Congress’
“The reports and talks that you see in the media or hear as political gossip is being spread due to jealousy over the rise of the Congress in the State. This also shows that the beginning of Rahul Gandhi’s campaign in the State in the form of Deoria se Dilli Kisan Yatra has been successful. There are people who are bothered by the success of our campaign. They want to subvert the success of our groundwork which is not going to happen anyway,” he said while addressing a large crowd of party workers.
Continue to work hard
“My request to all of our party workers is that they should completely ignore the false reports of alliance and continue their hard work which has been very fruitful and very encouraging. We need to ignore the rumours and work towards forming the government in the State in 2017,” Mr. Azad concluded.
Even as Mr. Azad denied any talk of a possible alliance with the SP and the RLD, political circles are full of talk that the senior party leaders were in talks with the Samajwadi Party trying to strike a seat-sharing arrangement with the ruling party in the State.
