Congress party dumps

22 September 2003, 18:00 PM

The Statesman/ ANN, New Delhi

After having tested the waters on "politics of coalition and alliances", the central leadership of the Congress has dumped the move at least for now. According to senior Congress leaders, the party's declaration at its Srinagar and Shimla conventions that it was ready for an alliance of secular forces opposed to the BJP, the initial response has not been very encouraging from some major forces in the opposition. The Samajwadi Party has maintained an ambiguous position on accepting Sonia Gandhi as the opposition's consensus Prime Ministerial candidate before the Lok Sabha elections and the CPI (M), the other major opposition force, stands divided on the issue. There are not many takers for Jyoti Basu's unequivocal commitment to Sonia. The Congress has decided to go slow on embracing the Bahujan Samaj Party after Mayavati's wholesome praise for Sonia and a friendly gesture shown by her to the Congress. The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh is not keen on an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party but would not oppose the proposal of some seat sharing-arrangement with the BSP in the state to make up for the anti-incumbency factor that goes against the Congress. Sources in the Congress said that the party would work out some sort of understanding with Mayawati on a limited scale which could be confined to only Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where the BSP has some support base of the Dalits. In Chhattisgarh, Ajit Jogi is confident of returning to power in the forthcoming Assembly elections due in November.