Cong won't field candidate against Mulayam's bahu

With Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s wife and Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav’s bahu, Dimple Yadav, filing her nominations for the Kannauj Lok Sabha bypolls on Tuesday, the Congress left no one guessing as to its growing bonhomie with the SP.

The Congress announced it would not be fielding any candidate against Dimple Yadav; the last time around it was the Congress’ Raj Babbar who had inflicted a humiliating defeat on her in the 2009 byelection to the Firozabad seat.

Congress leader and general secretary in charge of UP, Digvijay Singh,maintained it was not a departure from its earlier stand — even in 2009, the Congress did not contest the general elections from Kannauj, where Akhilesh Yadav was contesting.

Singh speaking to reporters on Tuesday said, “We had not contested the seat in the 2009 Lok Sabha election and we are not contesting it now. Besides Kannauj, the party had not put up any candidate then from Manipur, from where Mulayam Singh had contested.”

The shape of things to come had been evident from the UPA’s third anniversary celebration itself, where SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav was given pride of place and seated at the high table with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Yadav went on record to say that he was delighted. The Congress is now attempting to keep the SP as a bulwark against the temperamental Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, its ally.

Significantly, Kannauj had in the ‘80s been a Congress stronghold with present Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit winning the 1984 Lok Sabha polls from this constituency. However, over the years the Congress hold has been waning here.

A senior Congress minister from UP remarked that the present state of Congress was so dismal here that there is virtually no party base here. In the 2004 polls, the Congress candidate bagged a paltry 10,000 votes. “We have nothing to lose here by not contesting. We hardly have any presence here,” said the Congress leader.

Bypolls have been necessitated here as Akhilesh Yadav, who has held the seat for three terms, has since resigned and become UP chief minister.