RAE BARELI, 19 June 2006 — Having successfully returned to the Lok Sabha, winning a bypoll held last month with a record margin of more than 400,000 votes, Congress party President Sonia Gandhi is apparently confident of faring equally well throughout the country. While undertaking a two-day tour of her constituency for the first time since this victory, Sonia asked her party workers to start preparing for Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, less than a year away.

“We have to face the challenge of Vidhan Sabha elections and start our preparations,” she said yesterday while addressing her party workers at Feroz Gandhi College here. Signaling that her political confidence, buoyed by her electoral performance last month, is least likely to be eroded by left parties threatening to support third front government, sans-Congress and sans-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), she said: “I am sure if you are determined, the Congress will be successful not only in Uttar Pradesh but also in the entire country. Whenever the elections will be held, the opponents will be wiped out.”

Sonia is apparently confident of Samajwadi Party (SP), presently heading the UP government, having lost its earlier standing in the state. Rather than align with the SP in the assembly polls, she is at present counting on Congress pushing it out of power in UP. Calling on the Congress workers to expose UP government’s failures, she also called on them to indulge in massive grassroots campaign by reaching out to each voter. “Only that political party which is able to take the voters to the polling booths tastes success in elections, and we have to ensure just that,” Sonia said.

Though Sonia’s victory last month, following her resignation from the Parliament in March over the office-of-profit controversy, was certain, the party is apparently pleased about the number of votes secured by her. Certain recent developments also suggest that Congress is confident of turning the tide in its own favor in UP. Prospects of BJP faring well in UP have been considerably eroded by the party facing an internal crisis.

Senior BJP leader Pramod Mahajan’s death followed by the scandalous exposure of his son Rahul’s alleged indulgence in drug abuse has proved costly for the party.