Seat-sharing in UP: Amar meets Sonia

A day after Sonia Gandhi decided to personally hold seat-sharing talks with Samajwadi Party leaders for Uttar Pradesh, Amar Singh met her for half-an-hour. Political Bureau reports.

A day after Sonia Gandhi decided to personally hold seat-sharing talks with Samajwadi Party leaders for Uttar Pradesh, Amar Singh met her for half-an-hour.

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He, however, did not speak to the media and drove off from the Congress chief’s 10, Janpath residence.

Coming in the backdrop of the SP’s unilateral announcement of 51 nominees for the state’s 80 seats, Sonia’s decision raises speculation on whether Mulayam Singh Yadav could revisit some of those announcements. There are some contentious seats in the SP’s declared list of 51.

UP Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi on Saturday tried to put pressure on the SP saying her party will announce its nominess for all 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state if an agreement with SP was not reached by month-end. Also, BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra met Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Mishra, however, said it was just to convey the “wishes” of UP Chief Minister Mayawati for the speedy recovery of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who underwent a bypass surgery.