At meet with state leaders, Raj Babbar told: ‘Congress must contest Lok Sabha polls alone in UP’

Sources said Babbar was told that there is confusion over what the workers should concentrate on — BJP focusing on Hindus, SP on Muslims or BSP on Scheduled Castes. To this, Babbar reportedly replied — “take everyone along”.

It was also decided that soon, workers’ meetings would be held in every district, to be attended by senior leaders, to take suggestions about strengthening the party before the Lok Sabha elections.

On BJP targeting the party after it gave a miss to SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s call for an all-party meeting on “malfunctioning EVMs”, Babbar told mediapersons after the meeting: “We had a meeting in Delhi on the day the SP meeting was called… but we had already communicated our support on the issue.”

“Agar dostana hai to uska matlab lein dein nahi hota (If there is a friendship, it means there is no give and take),” he added.

About Akhilesh indicating that his party would contest future polls alone, Babbar said the SP chief’s statement was unclear. He, however, added: “Rishte jab bante hain koi mane ya na mane magar khatam nahi hote… (Once a relationship is forged… it never ends).”

However, when asked about fielding a joint candidate for the upcoming Phoolpur and Gorakhpur Lok Sabha bypolls, Babbar said the party high command will take a call on whom to nominate, the state unit can only give suggestions.

Asked if a political guru like Prashant Kishore will again be hired by the party for the Lok Sabha polls, Babbar said: “Guru to koi bhi nahi tha… Han result nahi mila.. Party ke logon ki mehnat se chunao larna chahte hain (There was no guru… it’s true we did not get results… We want to contest polls on the basis of the hard work of the workers).” He added that such decisions are taken by the party high command.

Calling Rahul a popular leader, Babbar said he will be the face of Congress’ campaign.

Taking on Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Babbar said while the CM has time to visit farmers in Karnataka, he does not have enough time to for problems being faced by potato farmers in UP, who were “committing suicide”.

He also targeted the Adityanath government on the Gorakhpur Mahotsava, which started on Thursday. Maintaining that he has no problems with any such event, Babbar said: “They (government) should show some humanity (manavta), as children have died in large numbers and are still dying in the same district,” said Babbar. He was referring to the deaths of over 60 children within a five days at state-run BRD Medical College and Hospital in Gorakhpur in August, last year. The hospital was again in news on Monday, when a fire destroyed several records.