The Congress in Uttar Pradesh is searching for an OBC leader who will help the party make a dent in the Samajwadi Party’s OBC votebank.

As the battle between the Congress and the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party intensifies in Uttar Pradesh, it is the Samajwadi Party and the BJP that are gradually getting elbowed out of the political arena.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday carried forward the mood set by her son Rahul Gandhi a day earlier when she described Uttar Pradesh as “andher nagari” and said the atrocities on farmers in Greater Noida’s Bhatta-Parsaul had left the country ashamed.

The Congress hopes that winds of change in Uttar Pradesh will blow from Purvanchal. The party plans to implement its revival plans from eastern UP which remains steeped in backwardness and two-day UPCC convention in Varanasi is an important part of the party’s game plan.

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, on Wednesday, served an ultimatum on the BSP government.
“Bhatta Parsaul is merely the beginning. Just see what we do in the future. We will fight from every village and turn them (BSP) out. There is no dearth of issues in UP and I have ample time. I will go to every nook and corner of UP this time,” he said while addressing the UPCC convention in Varanasi on Wednesday.

Within days of BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari being convicted for murder, another BSP MLA — this time also a former minister — has been convicted in an abduction and murder case.

Mahendra Singh Tikait, well-known farmer leader and president of the Bhartiya Kisan Union, died on Sunday after a protracted illness.

The protests against land acquisitions by farmers in Greater Noida turned into a full-blown political war on Thursday after the arrest of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday night with the BJP too sending senior leaders into UP to express solidarity with the farmers. UP chief minister and BSP supremo Mayawati hit back at the Congress, calling Mr Gandhi’s dharna “mean theatrics’ and saying the Opposition parties were playing dirty politics and trying to malign her image and her party.

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi created a furore in political circles when he reached Greater Noida’s violence-hit Bhatta Parsaul village in the early hours Wednesday, riding pillion on a motorcycle, where he sat on an “indefinite” dharna with the farmers and vowed not to desert them till their demands were met.

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi created a furor in political circles when he reached the violence-hit Bhatta parsaul village in Greater Noida in the wee hours of Wednesday morning to meet the agitating farmers.