BSP support makes Mission UP tougher for Congress

NEW DELHI: Congress has suddenly gone soft on BSP chief Mayawati. With Ms Mayawati declaring her party’s support to the UPA government during Tuesday’s cut motion in Lok Sabha, Congress characterised its sustained attack on Ms Mayawati as something “the party might have said at one point of time” and refused to take any further questions about its strategy in Uttar Pradesh.

It said that it viewed the Opposition sponsored cut motion as an opportunity to show that other parties were willing to work with the government to keep ‘communal forces’ at bay. “In order to keep communal forces at bay, support is available to the government. We are confident of defeating the cut motion,” party spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan said.

The effort on Congress’ part to put a positive spin on what is essentially a difficult situation for the government, however, does not take away the fact that Congress’ silence on Ms Mayawati and her politics will be difficult to explain in UP.

Under party general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s banner, Congress is attempting to emerge as the primary party in the run-up to the 2012 UP polls. In keeping with this gameplan, Congress has mounted a strong campaign against the BSP chief, who it has christened moortidevi Mayawati after the many statues, parks and memorials built by her government. Congress has also alleged that the Mayawati government has enough funds for statues but complains when it comes to funding education. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and party general secretary Rahul Gandhi have attacked the BSP chief for not implementing centrally-sponsored schemes such as the rural employment guarantee scheme.

It is despite such strong criticism that Congress is now forced to treat Ms Mayawati as an ally. With Ms Mayawati’s 21 MPs supporting the government, Congress-led UPA was able to defeat the cut motion. Though its spokesperson refused to entertain questions about whether her party would like to thank BSP chief, the party’s gratitude was evident from the fact that its attack on Ms Mayawati was tagged as something from the past. “Whatever we’ve said that stand was taken in connection with those issues,” Ms Natarajan said. She also seemed at a loss to explain the Congress’ strategy in UP in the coming days. “We will comment on it at the right time,” Ms Natarajan said.

Congress also insisted that in a “political democracy,” parties had the right to exercise their option to not side with “communal” parties. “Congress comes together with others on the basis of issues, not expediency,” Ms Natarajan said. The spokesperson also rubbished BJP’s charge that the party was misusing CBI by asking it to go slow against the UP chief minister in the disproportionate assets case.