Digvijay

New Delhi, April 1: Congress leaders are miffed with Digvijay Singh for suggesting a possible alliance with the Samajwadi Party for the Lok Sabha elections.

“He jumped the gun. There is no proposal or discussion at any level, central or state, in the Congress. Because the media reported his statement widely, it confused our workers,” said a general secretary from Uttar Pradesh.

When the state Congress held its first convention in 26 years at Kanpur last week, Digvijay, the general secretary in charge, hinted the party could team up with the Samajwadis to “strengthen the secular forces”.

Sources said the statement generated a debate among the workers and “deflected attention” from the main agenda — to think up ways of revving up the party in the state where it has been out of power since 1989.

The absence of party chief Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul on the first day of the two-day meet compounded the “confusion”. “Some of our workers wondered what was the purpose of hanging around for the discussions and speeches when the objective was to ride on Mulayam Singh Yadav’s back,” a source said.

On Day Two, Sonia said the Congress would keep equal distance from the Samajwadis and the BSP, and exhorted the workers to agitate against the Mayavati government.

“Unless we develop political muscle of our own, how can we bargain with any party?” asked Manish Tiwari, a national secretary and spokesperson.

Asked why the Congress singled out the BSP for attack, a source said: “An Opposition party will obviously target the government of the day and not another Opposition party.”

Digvijay claimed that his answer to a question was plucked out of context. “I stated that to keep the BJP out of power, we are ready to do business with any secular party.”

After Rahul’s stress on winning over Dalits, a tie-up with the Samajwadis would be “counter-productive”, sources said. “The Samajwadi coalition mostly represents the non-traditional land-owning castes who... replaced the upper castes as Dalit oppressors,” a source said.