Devpt graph dipped in Cong-mukt UP: Dikshit

Lucknow: If alliances are the flavour of the poll season in Uttar Pradesh, Congress's speeches on Sunday gave away none of who they might veer towards in the months to come. Newly minted UP Congress chief Raj Babbar and chief ministerial face, Sheila Dixit, upped the ante on the political opposition, referring to the 27 years of 'Congress-mukt' rule in Uttar Pradesh as years during which UP's development graph had plunged to abysmal lows.
On the one hand, while the attack on ruling Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janata party were not surprising, the Congress leadership did not spare "Behenji" and the Bahujan Samaj Party, either. Incumbent PCC chief Raj Babbar said, "Ek taraf Kanshiram ji ne Daliton aur picchhdon ki ladayi ladi aur unki mazbooti ke liye mutthi baandhi. Ab wo mutthi deeli pad rah hai, aur uski kalayi khulni shuru ho gayi hai. Log nikal ke jaa rahey hain aur kya kya bol rahey hain." (Kanshiram strengthened a movement to protect the Dalits and backward. Now that movement is coming undone and people are abandoning it and charting out on their own.) Babbar was referring to the recent exodus of senior BSP leaders from the party fold, the most shocking among them of OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya, who left after dramatically referring to Mayawati as "Dalit nahi, Daulat ki beti."
Soft launching their election campaign on Sunday before a formal launch by Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi in August, and putting up a show of strength -- a road show -- in the city, the sharpest attack was reserved, not surprisingly, for the BJP. Babbar referred to BJP national president Amit Shah as the "tadi paar" (whose entry is banned in a district) he had first heard about in Mumbai, who was now a "badi deel daul wala mukhiya" (large built). Alleging that Shah was striking "deals" in UP with a mission to divide the state on religious and caste lines, Babbar said, "His only motive in Uttar Pradesh is to find faces and people who can drive a wedge in the society."
On Sunday, Babbar was equally cutting in his reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, he said, had to resort to going abroad in order to meet with a gushing audience. "He made all kinds of promises of "acche din" but now that the Indian audience is no longer impressed, he travels abroad for the claps of appreciation, instead."
Attacking the ruling SP, with which he has been associated in the past, Babbar said, "In my student years, I was impressed by the socialist ideology. After I joined the SP, I realised it had nothing to do with the socialism I had known. So, I left for the only other party where Nehruvian Socialism remains alive even today." He also said that the party that had promised to put the corrupt inside jails when they were out of power was now claiming it was unable to control the law and order situation in the state. On Sunday, the UPCC chief also referred to SP cabinet minister Shivpal Yadav as the "chhote badan ka pehelwaan" who should be left alone to wrestle within the SP family.