Cong offers 40 seats, but RLD wants more

Refusing to drop any nominee from its announced list of 135 candidates, the Congress wants to seal the alliance with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) by offering the latter around 40 seats.

Refusing to drop any nominee from its announced list of 135 candidates, the Congress wants to seal the alliance with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) by offering the latter around 40 seats.

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RLD was initially demanding around 70 seats citing its strongholds in various districts of western UP.

While hectic negotiations are on between the two sides, the Congress sources said they are expecting to seal the deal this week itself.

The Congress has already released two lists with 73 and 62 names respectively. But, the RLD wants them to drop five of them so that it can contest those seats.

But the Congress, so far, has refused to oblige. “We are not dropping any candidate ”, AICC general secretary Mohan Prakash told reporters here.

The Congress plans to release its third list of candidates and has scheduled a meeting of the Congress election committee on October 31. While the Congress poll managers feel that a tie up with the RLD will help both sides garner the support of Jat-Muslim combination, they feel that Singh has more stakes in joining hands with the Congress.

Keen to seal the deal soon, Congress general secretary in-charge of UP, Digvijaya Singh, along with Mohan Prakash, held a meeting with Ajit Singh even on Diwali.