SP mulls tie up with Uma Bharti in MP

Ruling out any alliance with the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party today said it will talk to the Uma Bharti-led Bhartiya Janashakti Party for seat sharing in the state.

Ruling out any alliance with the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party on Wednesday said it will talk to the Uma Bharti-led Bhartiya Janashakti Party for seat sharing in the state.

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SP General Secretary Amar Singh said talks will be initiated with Uma Bharti for the upcoming Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and expressed optimism that his party will do well in the polls.

"After what all has happened in Madhya Pradesh, we will not have any alliance with Congress in the state and contest on our own in the assembly elections there. We will win more than our existing eight seats there.

"... We will also talk to Uma Bharti for an alliance," the SP leader said adding that the exit of the party's four legislators in that state would not effect its poll prospects.

Two weeks back, K K Singh, Vikram Singh, Arjun Palia and Vanshmani Verma were the four SP MLAs who had resigned from SP, blaming the central leadership of ignoring Madhya Pradesh.

On an alliance with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, he said SP has promised 12 seats to the party in the state provided "it does not try and eat into its leaders, which would force us to do a rethink".

Singh, however, said his party would continue to support the UPA government at the Centre and engage Congress in talks on seat sharing, "though it is up to them".

The SP leader further said he will also talk to the Ajit Singh-led RLD for a pre-poll alliance in UP.

"We will speak with RLD chief Ajit Singh for seat sharing separately," Singh said.