A secret two-hour meeting over dinner between Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati appears to have paved the way for a rapprochement between the two parties.
NEW DELHI: A secret two-hour meeting over dinner between Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati appears to have paved the way for a rapprochement between the two parties.
Also present at the dinner on Sunday was AICC general secretary and Sonia Gandhi’s son Rahul Gandhi.
The venom spewing Mayawati appeared to have cooled down considerably after her meeting with Sonia and prime minister Manmohan Singh. The government too did its bit to mollify and win over the BSP chief. And the normally frugal Singh has agreed to give in to her demand for a Rs80,000 crore UP package.
Though the details of what transpired at the meeting are not clearly known, it appears that the government appears to have a sympathetic view on her demand for SPG cover.
The government is planning to create a special protection force to look after the security of chief ministers and politicians who come under the high-risk category.
At the meeting, the BSP chief said that her forays outside UP were not targeted at the Congress and were meant to strengthen her own party, while the Congress leadership pointed out to her that it also wanted to strengthen itself in UP. The two parties are also said to have agreed to refrain from making personal attacks on each other.
The Congress has been agitating against the Mayawati-led government asking it to explain how the state government had spent all the money allocated to it by the Centre. Rahul Gandhi had recently toured Bundelkhand to highlight to plight of the drought-hit region.
Given the new détente between two sides it remains to be seen what role the Congress will now play in UP.
j_ansari@dnaindia.net 
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