"Congress will contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh", says Ghulam Nabi Azad

"Any secular party competent to fight the BJP, willing to go with us, we will accommodate them”, Azad said in a press conference on Sunday afternoon.

Lok Sabha Election 2019: The Congress today announced that it would go it alone on all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the upcoming general election. (PTI)

Lok Sabha Election 2019: Soon After getting a cold shoulder from the SP–BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh that was announced officially on Saturday, the Congress today announced that it would go it alone on all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the upcoming general election. Congress’ UP unit in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad and UP Congress President Raj Babbbar, held a press conference where they discarded the talks about the party being disappointed with the alliance of Akhilesh and Mayawati and declared that the Congress will contest polls on all 80 seats in UP on its own strength. In the presser the two Congress leaders said that the party will contest in UP and nationwide under the stewardship of Rahul Gandhi and exuded confidence of defeating the BJP. On the Grand Alliance, they said that Congress never talked about it, it was in the media. “We said that those who want to defeat BJP are welcome in the alliance. Talks are going on with many,” they said. Azad said: “We had said that we are with all those who want to defeat BJP. Now if somebody does not want to fight together..and they have closed the chapter, then we will fight our own battle.” “It is a fight of Congress and BJP, if any secular party competent to fight the BJP, is willing to go with us, we will accommodate them”, they said. Targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi Azad said: “Pradhan Mantri Ji, the country of which you are the Prime Minister, has been freed from years of slavery by the efforts of the Congress party. The first thing that the government after independence did was to unite the different pieces that the country was scattered in and made it one unified country. Today, the Prime Minister is not the PM of a small unit but of one big secular nation, built by Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawahar Lal  Nehru and many other Congress leaders." He reiterated the contribution of Congress to India as a country during the freedom struggle and afterwards. It is pertinent to note that SP and BSP are contesting on 38 seats each in the Lok Sabha polls, leaving Amethi and Raebareli for Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi as has been the trend. It is also being said that two ore seats have been left for Nishad party and Peace party.