Congress strategy for 2014 confirmed: Anyone but Modi for PM

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi may be talking up the chances of the United Progressive Alliance coming to power for a third term, but his own party leaders have more practical expectations. If Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, is to be believed ,expect the Congress to back pretty much any alliance that comes together against the BJP in order to ensure that Narendra Modi is denied the Prime Minister’s seat. In a interview with the Times of India today , Ahmed Patel, has said that the party isn’t ‘hankering for power’ and can consider ‘all options necessary to deny power to communal forces’. When asked whether they would be willing to support another alliance from outside, Patel said,"…Congress will not shrink from making sacrifice for the sake of the country’s good, and for defeating the challenge of communalism and its nexus with corporate communalism." [caption id=“attachment_1501439” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Ready to ally with anyone? AFP image[/caption] “The issue of who gets to be the PM is not as important as an understanding among secular parties over how best to counter the threat of communalism. What we might eventually do will depend on who gets what kind of numbers.” The Congress’s chief political strategist also said that he was confident the BJP wouldn’t get the numbers to form a majority. He denied that Priyanka Gandhi was being groomed for a bigger role in the party and said that if she decided to enter politics, it would be her own personal choice. Patel, perhaps only proves what leaders like Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav have been saying . The Grand Old Party of Indian politics may be on the ropes in this election but they’re definitely not out of the game. Pre-poll surveys have hinted that the Congress may even hit a historic low in the election but even if it has around a 100 seats, it could be valuable to any alliance outside of the NDA. Pre-poll surveys like the IBN-Lokniti poll tracker have not given very good odds on the regional parties or the barely stitched together Third Front doing as well as they would like to claim. But as Firstpost’s R Jagannathan had pointed out , while almost every survey has given the BJP the best shot at forming the government, there are many factors that could still result in it falling short of the required numbers and as a result may be even allies. In that event, the Congress will hope that the regional parties can put aside their differences and cobble together a possibly shaky alliance. And if they can, as Patel has declared, no party will be taboo.