No alliance with SP? Congress to contest UP local body polls on its own, says Ghulam Nabi Azad

Congress will contest the local body polls in Uttar Pradesh on its own, party general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad said in Aligarh on Sunday. 

"Our party will contest the forthcoming local body polls on its own," Azad said while addressing a function to mark the birth centenary of former prime minister Indira Gandhi.  The notification for the local body polls is likely to be issued before month-end. Azad also said that the Congress was "optimistic regarding its prospects in the forthcoming Assembly polls especially in Gujarat, where BJP was in a panic mode." "Modi government's popularity graph is going down and recent strategy to use UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath was an indication of this. This desperate move has also flopped," he claimed.

Azad said if prime minister Modi was such a "vote catcher then why was Adityanath being pushed in the campaign in the prime minister's home state." He said the recent assault on a Muslim youth carrying buffalo meat by alleged cow vigilantes in Faridabad indicated that law enforcement in the country has gone out of the government's hand. "Such incidents are continuing despite claims of the PM," he said.

Addressing the function, Congress' state unit president Raj Babbar said that, "it was ironical that UP chief minister Yogi Adaityanath was campaigning on the plank of providing better law and order in Kerala and Gujarat states while law and order in his own state is collapsing".