Excluding Cong from UP alliance will be 'myopic': Khurshid

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid on Sunday cautioned opposition parties such as the SP and BSP against excluding the Congress from the alliance in Uttar Pradesh for the 2019 polls or making the party look like a "dwarf" in the state, saying such a move will be "myopic" and benefit the BJP.

He also said Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has given the message that "lets not get caught up" with the issue of opposition's prime

ministerial candidate for now, as "collectively" winning the general election was the main focus.

In an interview to PTI, Khurshid said that this was "strategically" the best thing the Congress could have done to ensure that the BJP is not successful in creating gaps between the opposition parties as they work towards an alliance.

Khurshid, who has been Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee chief twice, asserted that parties should not write off the Congress in the state and it was important that it is part of an alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to take on the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 polls.

Asked about talk of Congress being given very few seats in Uttar Pradesh or excluded from the grand alliance, Khurshid said, "I would think it will be very myopic. I am not saying it because we stand to gain from the opposite view, but I think excluding the Congress or making Congress look (like a) dwarf in UP will be myopic."

He said the BJP would also benefit if such a scenario pans out.

Khurshid said that it should be kept in mind that the Congress had done well in the state in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

"And we did that, while we still were considerably behind them (the SP and BSP) in vote share because the big cities voted for us in a major way. Today, at the worst, we are 7 per cent and they (SP and BSP) are three times our vote share. But if we were to go out on our own, we are not going to be 7 per cent, we will probably once again touch 10, 11 or 12 per cent that we have shown repeatedly we can touch," he said.

The SP and BSP can certainly go up to 24, 25 or to 26 per cent vote share, but it doesn't mean that the Congress is "nothing", the 65-year-old leader said.

It will not be correct to write-off the Congress as despite being battered repeatedly in polls, it has about 10 per cent vote in the state that has stuck to it which is crucial in many seats, Khurshid said.

"So, I believe that for a serious, sustainable alliance ...a government that is genuinely a good government for India in the next five years, a creative and constructive participation of the Congress is necessary and that participation will not be creative, constructive and substantive if UP is missing from it," he said.

There would be a risk in undermining Congress too much in UP and the projection of sustainability for five years will suffer if the Congress participation in the state is not a satisfactory one, the former Union minister said.

Khurshid, however, conceded that in forging state-specific alliances, in the long run, the Congress may end up ceding ground to regional parties.

Khurshid asserted that though striking alliances was the "dictate of our times", but somebody in the party will have to keep thinking of ten or 20 years down the road. PTI