By IANS,
Bangalore : The Congress should go alone in the Oct 13 Maharashtra assembly elections and can explore a post-poll alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said here Tuesday.
“The party high command will decide the strategy for Maharashtra polls. I have conveyed my views to party president (Sonia Gandhi) that we can revive our fortunes in the state by contesting on our strength,” Deshmukh, a former Maharashtra chief minister, told reporters on the margins of an official function.
Expressing confidence that the Congress would return to power in Maharashtra for the third consecutive time on the basis of its coalition government’s performance in the last decade, Deshmukh said the party’s show in the April-May Lok Sabha elections was evident enough about its bright prospects.
“We are going to form the government in Maharashtra because we did our best in the recent parliamentary elections. Our state government’s performance is also good. And you know what is happening in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the national level and the Shiv Sena at the state level,” he added.
Referring to the Congress’ revival in Uttar Pradesh due to the efforts of party general secretary Rahul Gandhi, Deshmukh said time had come for a similar experiment in Maharashtra.
“Going it alone in Uttar Pradesh paid us good dividends. In Bihar too, we were able to revive the party though the results were not in our favour. Why not in Maharashtra, where our party cadres will get an opportunity to work in more assembly constituencies?” Deshmukh noted.
“I am talking in the interest of the party workers. If we fight more seats, more workers will get opportunity to work,” he noted.
Claiming that there was no anti-incumbency against the party, Deshmukh said though drought and price rise were issues of concern, the Congress-NCP government had taken a number of decisions in favour of farmers, labourers, minorities and covered each section of society.