Cong Ready To Turn The Heat On Uf

State leaders told to mount pressure as a build up to withdrawal of supportOur Political Bureau

State leaders of the Congress have been primed to criticise the United Front constituents in their states at a meeting with Congress President Sitaram Kesri on Thursday.

This is apparently part of Kesris strategy to gradually build pressure against the UF until he is ready to withdraw the partys support to the UF government, perhaps this winter.

In tandem, some senior MPs close to him note that he has been unusually solicitous of them over the past week or two. He does nothing without a political motive, says one of them. This is like, when an important match is coming up, you pump up your key players.

He says Kesri appears to be encouraged by the signs of revival he sees in various states. His confidant, Pranab Mukherjee, is said to have recently given him an assessment that the Congress would win 202 seats if it had electoral alliances with the Samajwadi Party in UP and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar. Apart from these two states, he has predicted gains in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Kesri had initially decided to have a Congress Working Committee meeting on Thursday, which presidents of the Pradesh Congress Committees and leaders of the Congress Legislature Parties would have been invited to attend. He has now decided that it should not be termed a CWC meeting but that CWC members could attend the state leaders brainstorming meeting with him.

The state leaders have been summoned to the capital ostensibly to attend a meeting of the partys committee for the celebration of the golden jubilee of Independence.

That meeting is scheduled for Thursday morning, but senior party leaders say the real reason for bringing the partys state leaders to the capital is to hear their criticism of the Unites Fronts constituents at the afternoon meeting.

They say Kesri wants to gradually build the ground for withdrawal of support to the UF government.