Stalemate Over Seat-Sharing Threatens Congress-SP Alliance

The Congress has been pushing for an alliance in view of larger interest and to give a united fight to the communal forces. There was jubilation among the Congress workers all over Uttar Pradesh on getting the word that the party is contesting on all seats as they were not happy with the alliance making their two years of hard work useless if the seats on which they laboured go to the SP.

Samajwadi Party lawmaker Naresh Agarwal today said that the ‘talks between SP and Congress are almost over. Now we will have to call him again.

Congress-SP pre-poll alliance runs into trouble.

Earlier there were rumours that when Akhilesh Yadav was in combat with his father Mulayam Singh, he offered the Congress 140 seats. In fact, Pradeep Mathur, the Congress MLA from Mathura, is the leader of the party in the UP Assembly. The party is likely to play the “betrayal card” and defend the “sacrifice” it had been ready to make to block the “communal forces”.

Congress consultant Prashant Kishore met chief minister Yadav late in the afternoon but the talks, which continued till evening, failed.

Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Vadra were personally involved in the dialogue with Samajwadi Party.

At the same time, SP national vice-president Kiran Roy M Nanda told reporters that if alliance takes place SP will withdraw its candidates where congress has sitting MLAs.

SP MP Naresh Agarwal, when asked about the alliance, said that “it was nearly over”.

When quizzed on SP releasing its list of 210 candidates, he parried a direct reply saying every party has a right to declare candidates.

A senior SP leader in Lucknow said, “The Congress only deserves 54 seats (where it came first in the 2012 elections or was the runner-up)”. However senior SP leaders explained that Alvi was in SP and has merely returned back to the party.

“CM Akhilesh Yadav is looking into details of Cong alliance”.

However, neither party said the talks had collapsed completely. The nominations for the first phase ends on January 24. Now the situation has changed.

Party leaders from Congress and Samajwadi Party feel that it is the compulsion of both the party to ally with each other to keep the BJP out of power in the state.

“Mulayam Singh with his son Akhilesh, has been engaged in a drama with the sole aim to divert the people’s attention from the failure of the Akhilesh government”, Mayawati told media persons here, referring to the “war” between Mulayam Singh and Akhilesh that had led to speculations of a split in the party.