'Congress will be a very distant third in UP'

March 22, 2019 13:53

Since his arrival in India in 2005, Gilles Verniers -- assistant professor of political science at Ashoka University and co-director of the Trivedi Centre for Political Data -- has been a keen observer, researcher and writer on Indian politics.

His research interests include state politics, especially Uttar Pradesh. Two of his recent publications explore studies in Indian politics and the transformation of the Samajwadi Party.

"The Congress can either concentrate on its revival in UP or it adopts a strategy to defeat the BJP by not getting in the way of the other parties who stand a better chance of winning. The Congress is trying to do both, but it probably is going to get neither," Dr Verniers tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih in the first part of an interview on electoral politics in UP, which sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha. Read the interview here.

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