Congress's willingness for alliance, not its weakness asserts Salman Khurshid

Congress party's willingness for alliance should not be seen as its weakness asserted former Union Minister and senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid on Tuesday.

While speaking to ANI on prospects of an alliance in Uttar Pradesh, he said, "Every party in this country is capable of fighting on their own but an alliance sometimes gives a greater advantage. The fact that we have an open mind for an alliance doesn't mean that we have a weakness. We can improve by an alliance and through it, we can improve the general theme of the grand alliance which is to try and push the BJP out of power. It doesn't mean we are doing it out of weakness, we are doing it to gain more strength."

Outlining that there may or may not be an alliance, Khurshid further added, "Alliance can happen and if it happens it is good. If its rational and reasonable and objective alliance, even better. But we are not going to stop working because there may or may not be alliance. We have to continue preparing for the elections. We don't have closed mind or heart. We just think what is best for the country. We can't force anyone for anything."

He also criticised the bill seeking to accord Indian citizenship to certain minority community refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan which was passed by the Lok Sabha on Tuesday and said that there must be a uniform law for all.

"When you have a brute majority you can pass anything. But the fact remains that people of Assam are taking this to be a very unpleasant development because we haven't heard the government explain why it's being done and the explanation that the Prime Minister has given is completely unacceptable. Why does he see that this is correcting the wrongs of history? Who has done wrong? These are people who are in different countries if they seek citizenship of India and they want to come to India, one should have uniform law that applies to them. You can't pick out and say what their religion and background is. Suddenly we have two citizenship laws in this country, one for all others and one for only some particular people based on religion. This is appalling," said Khurshid.

It is learnt that the SP-BSP is likely to contest the coming Lok Sabha polls as allies and the two parties have even agreed on the number of seats they would be contesting.