NEW DELHI, AUG 30: Keeping in mind the dwindling fortunes of Congress in Uttar Pradesh and peeved at the ``high-handed treatment'' meted out to him, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Ajit Singh is in no mood for a patch-up with his erstwhile ally.Singh had recently stormed out of the one-year-old tie-up, catching the Congress unawares in Uttar Pradesh - where it has few takers as far as alliances are concerned. Since then the Congress has been trying to woo him back, keeping in mind the substantial Jat vote of western Uttar Pradesh under his belt.An adamant Singh told The Indian Express today that he was not going to reconsider his decision to break off the alliance, although he had received feelers from several senior Congressmen for a compromise. ``There is no reason for it now.its difficult to work with the Congress as the mood of the people in the state appears to have been lost on the party,'' Singh said and added that he was left with no option but to call off the alliance after being rebuffed by the party over and over and again.Singh's posturing comes as a snub to Pradesh Congress Committee chief Salman Khursheed, who had, in a recent coordination committee meeting of the state unit, admitted that the RLD was a ``useful ally'' and that the differences which had cropped up should be resolved quickly.However, Congress circles say that by spurning the Congress' overtures, Singh obviously had in mind the former's desperate hunt for alliances among the regional parties in the run up to the Assembly polls next year. ``His strategy is to play hard to get so that he can be in a better bargaining position when elections draw near,'' a senior Congress leader said.Singh, whose party won two Lok Sabha seats and helped the Congress win another two in western UP in last year's Lok Sabha elections, is in touch with other smaller parties in the state such as the OBC-dominated Apna Dal and Momin Conference, with whom he plans to float a kind of an alternate ``Third Front.''The Jat leader has already upped the ante on other parties in UP by raising the demand for a Harit Pradesh to be carved out of western UP and encompassing Meerut, Saharanpur, Moradabad, Agra and Bareilly divisions. This is where the majority of his Jat vote bank comes from and Singh obviously wants to make the state's creation an election plank during next year's assembly elections.The BJP and the Congress are yet to make their stand clear on the creation of a Harit Pradesh, although Union Home Minister L.K. Advani informed the Parliament during the last session that the Centre was prepared to consider it if and when such a proposal was placed before it. The movement as of now is subdued but the creation of Uttaranchal has given it a fillip and may gather momentum in the coming days.
