Cong in UP wants SP be kept out of UPA govt

LUCKNOW: Buoyed by the success of the party in Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, Congress in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday asked the party's central leadership not not to take the support of Samajwadi Party, BSP or Rashtriya Lok Dal in government-formation.

"We have apprised the party leadership of the view of the state unit that taking the support of these parties would not not be in the interest of the party and that maintaining distance with them would be more beneficial ", UPCC President Rita Bahuguna Joshi told newspersons here.

Joshi, who is slated to leave for Delhi later, said if required she would personally apprise them with the state unit's viewpoint but a final decision would have to be taken by the central leadership and whatever decision they take is acceptable to the state unit.

Joshi said Congress had till now been dubbed as a party without mass base in the state and now that it was on a recovery path and it would not be in the interest to take the support of any of the parties with whom it had to fight in the state to restore lost ground and which had been bashing it all through.

The UPCC president said the party was happy that it did not go for seat-sharing agreement with Samajwadi Party as "the victory on our own strength was more respectable".

"Had we gone to the poll in alliance with SP, the credit would have gone to that party", she said adding the victory is the expression of electorate's faith in the policies of Manmohan Singh and the leadership of Sonia Gandhi.