Rahul Gandhi holds talks on UP assembly polls

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi today met Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh to discuss the party's prospects in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.
Speaking to reporters after their half an hour-long meeting here, Singh said Rahul held talks on the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections slated early next year.
Rahul is on a two-day visit to his parliamentary constituency.
In a closed door meeting with legislators in Lucknow on Thursday, Rahul had discussed option of forming an alliance for the assembly elections on the pattern of Bihar where the party put up a good show as part of grand alliance in the assembly polls winning 27 of 41 seats contested, a party MLA had said on condition of anonymity.

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Asked about BJP dubbing the Congress leader as being "non serious", Singhvi said, "With the greatest respect I must castigate such an attempt."

Singhvi said the "poor dalits" deserve greater attention from you than "such peripheral debased and devalued stories".
He said, "We don't believe in such trivialisation and such superficiality" and showed a similar picture of Narendra Modi clearly showing him "sleepy" but said Congress party does not want to make public.
"The picture is of Mr Modi feeling slightly sleepy on November 26, 2015. I have never raised this issue and I do not intend to raise this even today," he said, adding that he does not believe that even if Mr Modi is feeling slightly sleepy and tired for a few minutes, it is something on which he would make an issue in the press.

Taking a dig at Rahul Gandhi, BJP National Secretary Shrikant Sharma said it showed how serious he was for dalits and that Congress never considered the community more than a vote bank.
"Rahul Gandhi and company visits those places from where they can draw political benefits. He did not go to Kerala when a dalit girl was brutally raped and murdered. It would be unreasonable to expect mature and constructive politics from him.
"To do politics to grab power and show fake concern for the poor and dalits is his politics," he said claiming that the Modi government had done a lot for them while Congress only exploited them.