The Year 2008 is set to witness a change of political equations in Uttar Pradesh with the Congress planning to undertake a series of agitational programmes against the policies of the BSP regime in the state.

Starting with a rally at Jhansi on January 17, to be addressed by AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi, the Congress is working out a strategy to undertake agitational programmes against the state government’s policies regarding the acquisition of farmers’ land for the Taj Expressway and the Ganga Expressway projects. These programmes will be finalised at the UP Coordination Committee meeting in Jhansi on January 17.

In the run-up to the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh early this year, the Congress had refrained from criticising the BSP and rather targeted the then Samajwadi Party regime for its failures on the developmental front and for the deteriorating law and order situation in the state.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s dinner meeting with Mayawati at the latter’s residence in New Delhi in June — following which the Chief Minister agreed to support the UPA’s presidential nominee — was the high point in the relationship between the two parties.

The two have, however, drifted apart since then as there is growing realisation in the two camps about their conflicting political interests, with both parties competing for the Dalit vote bank. In the recent Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the BSP spoilt the Congress’s chances on many seats and now looks set to repeat the same in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi, which will go to polls in 2008.

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