Addressing his first joint rally with poll partner Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Kanshi Ram, Rao, however, did not elaborate further, simply saying it would be easier for the Congress if the BJP was checkmated in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Hum United Front ki sarkar ko dho rahe hain kyo ki hamare pas BJP ko satta se bahar rakhne ka aur koi rasta nahi tha, (we are just carrying on the UF government, because we have no alternative but to keep the BJP out of power, Rao said.
Giving an indication about the party's future course of action towards the UF regime after the UP polls if the BJP was reduced to a marginal force, Rao said the Congress had always sacrificed the party's interests to keep the nation interests in the forefront.
He said if UP took a turn in favour of Congress-BSP alliance during the coming elections, things would be easier for him to handle at the Centre.
He described the BSP-Congress alliance as a natural tie-up and announced it would spread to other parts of the country soon.
Rao, however, did not respond when Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Jitendra Prasada and BSP leaders demanded withdrawal of support to the Deve Gowda government.
BSP supremo Kanshi Ram and his party general secretary Mayawati launched a frontal attack on Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda for his meeting with Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray in Mumbai recently and said it had proved that the UF, which harped on secularism was basically a pseudo-secularist force.
It was the first Congress-BSP rally in which Rao took part. At the rally site, the blue and tricoloured flags of the BSP and Congress fluttered and people raised pro-Congress and BSP slogans.
Rao dismissed allegations that the Congress-BSP alliance was an opportunistic one and said that both the parties were drawing common day-to-day programmes for welfare of down troddens besides pursuing their joint political activities.
He said that though other parties talked of secularism, they hobnobbed with the BJP from time to time to serve their political interests but the Congress was clear that it would never bridge its distance with the BJP.
The first joint rally of the two partners was held last week at Azamgarh district.
Jitendra Prasada, UPCCI chief, urged Rao to reconsider the party's decision of support to the UF government as the front was not discharging its duties to checkmate communal elements and arrest the menace of goondaism in the state.
Former Union minister Salman Khursheed also other addressed the gathering in Jhansi district which comprises four assembly segments of Babina, Jhansi, Mauranipur, and Garotha.
