YSR Congress may back Congress post-2014 elections

HYDERABAD: The YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh is open to supporting a Congress-led alliance after general elections next year, but it will not merge with the Grand Old Party, despite feelers, or enter into a prepoll alliance with it, a key figure in the regional outfit said in an interview to ET.

The statement by YS Vijaya Lakshmi, the widow of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, whose son Jagan Mohan Reddy broke away from the Congress in 2010, is the clearest indication yet of the surging outfit's intention ahead of elections to the Lok Sabha and the Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly in 2014.

"A pre-election alliance is ruled out. Since we cannot support communal parties, we may support either a Congress-led United Progressive Alliance or a third front," said Vijaya Lakshmi, who is the honorary president of YSR Congress and the main spokesperson of the party since her son is in jail.

Such an offer will be cold comfort for the Congress, which is in disarray in a state vital to its prospects next year. In 2009, the party won 33 out of the 42 seats in Andhra Pradesh. This was the largest contingent of MPs for the party from any state.

"The Congress wants our party to merge with them. We are not interested in merging with the Congress," she said.