Cong MP to campaign for SP in UP assembly elections

Lucknow, Mar 13 (UNI) Congress MP Obedullah Azmi today announced to campaign for the ruling Samajwadi Party in the forthcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Mr Azmi said he would continue to remain in Congress in a bid to bring back his party back on the tracks of secularism.

Alleging that AICC president Sonia Gandhi was being misguided by a select group of party leaders, he said the party has forgotten the very principles on which it was formed.

A Rajya Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh, Mr Azmi would hold public meetings in the state to campaign for SP, Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav announced here today.

Mr Yadav said all political parties, except the CPI (M) were against SP despite the fact that his party was working for the development of the state and continuously fighting communalism.

Mr Azmi claimed that certain Congress leaders have sacrificed principles for their vested interests.

''I will neither quit Congress nor resign from RS membership...I will work for SP to enable Congress return to its principles,'' he added.

He claimed that while on one hand Congress talked of fighting communalism, on the other it was helping parties like BJP to return to power in assembly elections. ''Punjab and Uttrakhand are the latest examples,'' he added.

A Congress general secretary and former MLA Buniyad Hussain Ansari also joined the SP in the presence of the CM and party general secretary Amar Singh.

UNI