Sonia reviews party's poll strategy in Maharashtra

Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi yesterday to decide the party's strategy for the forthcoming Assembly elections among dire predictions that the Congress will not be able to return to power unless it does a deal with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), especially in the Vidarbha region.

State Congress unit chief Prabha Rau and Congress general secretary in charge of Maharashtra Margaret Alva were present when Shinde met Gandhi.

Two days ago, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and Sharad Pawar's most trusted lieutenant Praful Patel had discussed the alliance with Gandhi and had said the Congress chief had told him that she would depute leaders for talks with the NCP on alliance, seat sharing and other related issues.

The NCP is the ally of the Congress in Maharashtra and has been facing internal problems.

During Shinde's meeting with Gandhi it was decided that she would tour Maharashtra on August 11 to survey drought and flood-hit areas. Coincidentally, Gandhi will visit the Vidarbha region""Amaravati, Nandurbar, Vardha and Nagpur""so clearly this is a visit keeping in mind the forthcoming Assembly elections.

The Congress is worried about the growth of the BSP in a bastion like Vidarbha where, with very little effort, the BSP candidates polled over 100,000 votes in every constituency.

This is clearly a gain at the expense of the Congress, which was wiped out in the region in the Lok Sabha election.

The traditional contest in the region has been between the CPI(M) and the Congress and the RSS has been a strong player. But all that has now changed.

By contrast the BJP-Shiv Sena combine are planning their election strategy around local issues, preferring to ignore caste.

The failures of the Democratic Front government led by Shinde and the dire financial straits that Maharashtra is currently mired in, are going to be the issues raised by the Opposition.