Wednesday, Apr 24, 2024 | Last Update : 05:50 AM IST
UP polls: SP-Congress pact runs into rough weather
Shivpal Yadav has been given a ticket from his traditional Jaswantnagar seat.
Lucknow/ New Delhi: The Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance ran into rough weather on Friday when the Samajwadi Party released two lists of 210 candidates, including for nine Assembly seats that are presently held by the Congress.
The Samajwadi Party, while saying that there had been no positive response from the Congress regarding the alliance, said that the Assembly seats in Amethi and Rae Bareli would remain with SP.
Rae Bareilly and Amethi are Sonia and Rahul Gandhi’s Lok Sabha constituencies. Seven of the 10 seats in Rae Bareilly and Amethi have sitting SP MLAs.
Samajwadi Party vice-president Kiranmoy Nanda said that the Congress had not claimed the nine sitting seats, adding that his party would not give more than 84-85 seats to the Congress, which should actually get only 54 seats on the basis of its performance in 2012.
In the last Assembly elections, the Congress had won 29 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh though they had put up candidates in all 403 constituencies.
The unilateral announcement of seats by SP came as a major loss of face for the Congress, once known for its negotiation skills.
Senior Congress leaders, including Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ahmed Patel, were in a huddle at the residence of Mrs Gandhi, and UPCC president Raj Babbar was rushed to Lucknow in the afternoon. He returned to Delhi in the evening without holding talks with Mr Yadav.
Congress spokesperson Ajay Maken said, “SP’s announcement of candidates for nine seats currently held by the Congress in UP is unfortunate,” and added that the Congress will wait for further talks between Mr Azad and Mr Yadav.
SP’s UP minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh told reporters in Lucknow that the Samajwadi Party did not need any alliance and was capable of contesting and winning elections on its own.
Talking to reporters, Mr Babbar said, “The respect of the party workers is the respect of the party”, and clarified that the alliance had not yet been called off.
The nine Congress seats on which the Samajwadi Party has announced its candidates are Rampur, Mathura, Shamli, Saharanpur, Bulandshahr, Kanpur, Bulandshahr (two seats) and Hapur.
