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SP to join Congress march once seat-sharing is final
The SP earlier offered 15 seats, largely of its choice, to the Congress, which did not respond. The party upped its offer, hours after Yadav’s remarks, to 17
The Samajwadi Party (SP) will join the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi only after seat-sharing arrangement between the two parties for the Lok Sabha elections is finalised, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Monday, highlighting further cracks in the already fragile Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).
“The SP will join Rahul Gandhi’s Nyay Yatra once the seat-sharing deal is finalised,” Yadav said on the sidelines of an event in Lucknow. “Right now, talks are going on; lists have come from them. We have also given them a list.”
The SP had earlier offered 15 seats, largely of its choice, to the Congress, which did not respond. The party upped its offer, hours after Yadav’s remarks, to 17. The state, India’s most populous, sends 80 parliamentarians to the Lok Sabha.
“We have given a final offer of 17 Lok Sabha seats to the Congress,” SP national secretary and spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said. “Akhilesh Yadav’s participation in the Nyay Yatra in Rae Bareli on Tuesday will depend on their acceptance.”
Earlier this week, alliance talks looked promising because Rahul Gandhi called Yadav, at a time when negotiators on both sides -- Avinash Pandey and Mukul Wasnik on the Congress side and Udaiveer Singh and Lalji Verma on the SP side -- were deadlocked over the choice of seats, said a person aware of developments.
According to this person, Gandhi requested Yadav to make adjustments and said party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will be his personal emissary. “The SP team had to take note of this special gesture and made adjustments on the four seats that Gandhi was keen on. But what created confusion for the SP was that there were mixed signals from each of these power centres,” said the person, requesting anonymity.
This person hinted at a lack of communication and clash of egos between the Congress negotiators. “On Friday, when everything should have been tied up, Priyanka Gandhi fell ill and called apologising for her inability to talk. She again deputed Pandey along with local leaders like Ajai Rai to take the negotiations forward. That’s when SP sent a formal offer of 15 seats,” the person said.
On Sunday,party president Mallikarjun Kharge called Yadav, asking for two more seats, said the person quoted above. The SP accepted this offer but there was no response from the Congress, they said.
“How will Akhileshji go to Amethi on Tuesday without the final signoff?’’ they said.
The Congress did not respond to queries.
The tensions threaten to further widen cracks within the INDIA bloc, which has already suffered the exit of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and the possible switch of the Rashtriya Lok Dal. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal have said that their parties will go it alone in Bengal and Punjab.
Hours after Yadav’s comments, the SP declared 11 more candidates for the upcoming general elections, including don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari’s brother and BSP MP Afzal Ansari.On January 30, the SP had announced its first list of candidates for 16 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. The announcements have fuelled speculation that all is not well with seat talks.
Earlier, Yadav was invited to join the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra. At the time, he had said he will join it. Subsequently, the SP said he will join the march either in Amethi or Rae Bareli.
Seat talks have been dogged by problems, hurting the alliance’s ability to take on the BJP, which holds 62 of the 80 seats in the state.
On January 27, Yadav unilaterally announced that 11 seats would be allotted to the Congress. Three days later, the SP announced 16 candidates; five of these 16 -- Kheri, Dhaurahra, Farrukhabad, Akbarpur and Faizabad -- were among those 21 seats that the Congress had won in 2009 and reportedly wanted for itself for the 2024 polls.
The SP chief has dismissed the Congress’s demand of seats it won in 2009, saying the political situation has changed drastically since then.
Congress leaders said that part of the problem was that the SP was offering seats such as Kaiserganj, Bansgaon, Mathura, Bulandshahr and Baghpat, where the Congress has not planned at all to contest polls.
A Congress leader in the state, who did not wish to be identified, said: “Seat sharing is a complicated matter and can be sorted out. But the yatra is something else. Its a campaign against fascist forces, a campaign towards saving the Constitution. Rest is Akhilesh ji’s choice.”
