Uf-Cong Alliance To Be Put To Test At Farrukhabad

The newly forged alliance between the Congress and the United Front will be put to test in Farrukhabad, when the constituency goes to polls on May 29. The bypoll is to fill the vacancy caused by the death of BJP leader Brahma Dutt Dwivedi.

The political line of Jitendra Prasada, now endorsed by the Congress Working Committee as well, will be implemented in what is likely to be a straight contest, between the BJP and the Samajwadi Party.

Although Mulayam Singh has been keen on UF taking the support of the Congress, it was Jitendra Prasad, who after the forging of the BSP-BJP alliance, advocated the alliance with the UF, even while continuing to blame the SP for the BSP's desertion.

 

This is what we wanted Deve Gowda to do, but he was not prepared for that. Therefore the UF leadership had to be changed. Now in the changed circumstances we have not only forged an alliance with the UF, but shall do so with the BSP as well. This may take a month or two to finalise, a Congress leader told Business Standard.

However, for now, it is only the Congress and the UF. Farrukhabad is one of those rare constituencies where the Congress has not lost vote since 1991. In 1991 it polled 22.04 per cent of the votes. This rose to 25.34 in 1996. Thus it has remained a formidable force.

On the whole, the Samajwadi Party, too, has not been affected, not beyond the beating the party's image has suffered in Uttar Pradesh. Both Congress and the SP circles conceded that the ground situation is such that the sympathy wave can bring the BJP back to power.

But the importance of the poll is not necessarily in the result. It is in the future tie-up between the UF and the Congress. This can change the political set up of the country.