Hindutva driving Cong-SP pact

NEW DELHI: Politics looks set to take a dramatic turn in UP, with the Vajpayee government reviving its legal moves to hand over the ''undisputed'' part of the Ayodhya land to the VHP-led Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas.
Thanks to Ayodhya, it is more than likely that the Mulayam-Sonia understanding — according to which the Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) will fight the byelections in UP — will not be just a limited mobility pact.
Sources say both Mulayam and Sonia are convinced that the BJP may unleash its Hindutva card soon. The NDA agenda will be put on the backburner.
Should this Hindutva card generate enough passion, the Vajpayee government may opt for a snap Lok Sabha poll along with or soon after the assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Chhattisgarh.
Little wonder that most of the senior Congress leaders want to say goodbye to the disastrous ''soft Hindutva'' line this time. They are favouring the politics of alliances with Mulayam in UP, Laloo Yadav in Bihar and Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra.
Now that Mulayam and Sonia have joined hands for all practical purposes, the immediate fallout in UP could be that SP and Congress MLAs would, with the help of BJP rebels, try to topple the Mayawati government on the floor of the House when the assembly meets in early March.