Gandhi disowns key Indian leader

By Ram Dutt Tripathi
BBC News, Lucknow

Mrs Gandhi hopes to reverse Congress' fortunes in UP

The head of India's governing Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, has for the first time directly challenged a powerful low caste leader and former ally.

She is upset over efforts by the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mayawati, to project herself as a prime ministerial candidate in elections due shortly.

Mrs Gandhi told her her supporters at a rally that they should risk imprisonment over the issue.

UP is India's most populous state and provides 80 seats in parliament.

'Cheated'

Mrs Gandhi alleged that several central government schemes intended to provide welfare to oppressed and poor people were not being properly implemented by the UP state government.

Her heir apparent - the Congress party's General Secretary, Rahul Gandhi, alleged that lower caste people were being cheated by the Mayawati government.

Mayawati has ambitions to be PM

Mayawati herself comes from a poor lower caste family. But she only won the last state assembly elections to become chief minister of UP by winning support from the vote base of the Congress Party.

Up until recently, the Congress Party had a loose electoral alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati.

But the party's attitude changed when Mayawati started a nationwide campaign to become prime minister of India.

Congress leaders say that Mayawati is now damaging the prospects of the party, with the next elections due within a few months.

Most Congress delegates attending the convention welcomed Mrs Gandhi's call for direct action against the Mayawati government.

They hope this will revive the party's fortune in UP - at present the party has only 10 seats.

However Mrs Gandhi said that more "soul searching" was needed by Congress if it was to perform better in the polls.