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INDIA bloc: SP for seat-sharing talks, decisions fast
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and the SP ally Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Chaudhary will attend the fourth meet of the bloc
The Samajwadi Party (SP) will not only attend the fourth meeting of the INDIA bloc, in Delhi, on Tuesday, but is likely to make a strong case for speeding up discussions and decisions on core alliance activities.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and the SP ally Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Chaudhary will attend the fourth meet of the bloc, which will also be the first one after assembly elections in five states in which the BJP scored 3-1. Congress was defeated in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, and Rajasthan and could only win Telangana.
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) is an alliance, currently of 28 political parties, against the ruling BJP for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The elections in MP created deep tension between the Congress and the SP – the two major partners in the INDIA bloc – and had put a question mark on the INDIA bloc in Uttar Pradesh.
Tension mounted when the SP – its anticipation aside – did not get any seats from the Congress to contest the MP polls as the latter did not entertain any seat-sharing. Akhilesh went ballistic against the Congress. Consequently, SP contested 69 MP seats on its own. The SP did not win any seats and the Congress too failed to displace the BJP in the central India state.
The SP was responsible for the Congress candidates’ defeat on four seats. Leaders of both parties attacked each other, but the verbal duel from the Congress side ended after the poll result.
However, as the poll results also sent out a clear signal that no single opposition entity was enough to take on the BJP, both the SP and Congress adopted reconciliatory tones.
SP chief Akhilesh repeatedly said: “The poll results will make the INDIA bloc stronger...the results have shattered Congress’s arrogance...there will be no problem in seat sharing”. The SP will lead the INDIA bloc in UP, but it wants seat-sharing discussions and decisions to be finalised soon.
“Seat-sharing and joint campaigning are the only two most important things. The rest of the elements of the alliance are not so important in pre-poll time”, said Javed Ali Khan, the SP representative in the INDIA bloc coordination committee.
The SP had traditionally declared candidates much earlier than other parties in UP. “This gives candidates a lot of time (before the election notification) to connect with the electorate in the respective constituency before the actual campaign begins”, said an SP leader.
In UP, the INDIA bloc partners are SP, RLD, Congress, and Apna Dal (K).
For the last week, Akhilesh Yadav had been repeating almost daily: “Numbers are not important, the alliance is. The alliance will happen. And the SP, as always, will give more than due respect to the partners as we did in the past”.
It has been nearly three months since the last meeting of the INDIA bloc. The first meeting was held in Patna, Bihar, on June 23, the second happened on July 17-18 in Bengaluru, Karnataka, where the name INDIA was adopted for the alliance, and the third was held in Mumbai on August 31 and September 1.
