Senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and Congress' Uttar Pradesh president Raj Babbar landed in Lucknow on Sunday to take stock of the situation.
A day after the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) announced an alliance in Uttar Pradesh, leaving out the Congress, senior Congress leaders said on Sunday that the party plans to contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats on its own. Senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and Congress' Uttar Pradesh president Raj Babbar landed in Lucknow on Sunday to take stock of the situation.
Speaking to reporters, Azad said that the 2019 Lok Sabha fight will be a direct contest between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress, and anybody is welcome to join them. "When we talked about the 'Mahagathbandhan', we are looking at a direct fight between the Congress and BJP. WQe want to defeat the BJP, and we welcome anybody into the gathbandhan. For that purpose there are no compulsions. If any secular party, competent to fight the BJP, wants to join us, we will accommodate them," Azad said.
A day after the SP and BSP had announced on Saturday that they plan to contest 38 seats each, leaving the two traditional Gandhi family seats of Amethi and Rae Bareli for the Congress, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said in Dubai that he has "tremendous respect" for SP's Mulayam and Akhilesh Singh and BSP's Mayawati. He added that Congress might have a surprise or two in store in UP.
Azad, meanwhile, said Congress wasn't disheartened at being left out of the alliance. "In fact, they are relieved that the party will get to contest from 80 seats, not 25," he said, while also adding that a post-poll tie-up with the SP-BSP coalition can still not be ruled out.
Uttar Pradesh sends the highest number of MPs to the Lok Sabha at 80. In 2009, Congress had won 21 of the 80, a tally which shrunk to just two in 2014, as the BJP swept the state, winning 71 seats.
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