There is no end to troubles for the Congress in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. After INDIA bloc partner Samajwadi Party (SP) took it by surprise by unilaterally declaring candidates for 16 Lok Sabha seats, senior leader Acharya Pramod Krishnam, who has twice contested on a Congress ticket — from Sambhal in 2014 and Lucknow in 2019 — now appears to be sulking.

Krishnam, 59, who recently met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to invite them for the foundation-laying ceremony of ‘Kalki Dham’ in Sambhal district, has been all praise for the BJP leaders since then.

Kalki, believed to be one of the incarnations of Lord Vishnu, has an ancient temple in Sambhal, which Krishnam as its ‘Peethadhiswar’ is developing into a dham (pilgrimage).

While Krishnam maintained that his visits to the PM and Rajnath were merely to invite them for the Kalki Dham inauguration, and should not be seen as political meetings, Congress workers are worried because his statements — praising the PM for the construction of the Ayodhya Ram Temple while targeting his own party for not accepting the consecration invite — speak otherwise.

Krishnam in fact also said that Modi has “divine powers”, adding that followers of Sanatan Dharma wanted him to lay the foundation of the Kalki Dham, just like the PM had worked towards the construction of the Ram Temple.

He has also been targeting his own party for its decision to not attend the Ayodhya consecration ceremony, as well as Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Naya Yatra. He asked the party to correct its mistake in not accepting the Ram Temple invite, saying Lord Ram belongs to everyone. Then, he said that looking at the Yatra, it appeared that the Congress was preparing for the 2029 elections, not 2024.

Sources within the Congress said that while Krishnam — earlier a part of its Uttar Pradesh Advisory Council, formed to assist Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in her role as UP in-charge for the Congress — has always been vocal about expressing his thoughts, one of the reasons for his sulking could be the SP decision to declare candidates for both Sambhal and Lucknow, which Krishnam has beene eyeing.

While the Congress has not accepted the SP list and is hoping to get at least Lucknow, this is not going to be easy.

The SP Sambhal candidate is its sitting MP from the seat, Shafiqur Rehman Barq, and in Lucknow, the party sees a better chance for itself given that it stood second from there in 2019, though Krishnam too performed well with over 1.80 lakh votes; the winner was the BJP’s Rajnath Singh. The SP has named its veteran leader Ravidas Mahrotra from there.

The 1.8-lakh votes for Krishnam were surprising given that the Congress had been decimated elsewhere in the state, winning just 1 seat (Rae Bareli, with Sonia Gandhi as candidate), with even Rahul Gandhi losing from Amethi.

His hopes of getting a ticket notwithstanding, Krishnam, 59, and originally from Sambhal, does not have a promising electoral record. While in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he had finished fifth in Sambhal, in 2019, he had come third.

What could hold Krishnam in good stead is his good ties with leaders of other parties, including the SP.