Bickering within the INDIA alliance in Uttar Pradesh has surfaced over seat sharing between the Samajwadi Party and the Congress in the Madhya Pradesh assembly election.
Peeved over the Congress’s denial of adequate seats to the party in MP and even fielding a candidate on the seat that the SP had won in 2018, the SP president, Akhilesh Yadav, has hit out at the Congress saying, “It should be clarified whether the opposition parties’ alliance (INDIA) was at the national or state level.”
While talking to reporters in Kanpur on Tuesday night, Yadav even went to the extent of announcing that the SP will contest all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.
“The Alliance should be both at the national and state level, then only we can defeat the BJP. But it is not considered now,” he said.
Yadav had announced his party’s manifesto for the MP assembly polls, promising caste census and free laptops to meritorious students, among other things. He had also announced a candidate list for nine seats in the state.
A senior SP leader said the party was expecting some seats, but the Congress on Sunday declared the candidates on over 140 seats, including the Bijawar seat, which the SP won last time. So, the SP went ahead with its original poll plan for Madhya Pradesh, and the state unit will be happy to contest as many seats as possible for expansion of the party.
The SP senior leader said Yadav had a talk with the MP Congress chief, Kamal Nath, but the Congress did not heed to the demand of SP and declared their seats.
However, the UP Congress president, Ajay Rai, while hitting back on SP, said the Samajwadi Party should extend full support to the Congress in Madhya Pradesh.
“The SP has no support base in MP, and the party’s only MLA there joined hands with the BJP. An electoral understanding would be reached once discussions on the issue are held at the national level,” he said.
Rai even said the Congress will contest the Lok Sabha elections not on Akhilesh Yadav’s terms but on its own resolution.
Another issue that hit the SP was that senior party leaders joined the Congress.
Former SP MLA Gayadeen Anuragi and former Ghazipur MLA Pashupati Nath Rai took Congress membership of Congress along with their supporters on Wednesday. Both the former MLAs said that now only Congress can fight the battle of all society in UP, hence they have joined the party to strengthen the hand of Congress.
While handing out the membership card, Ajay Rai said that the honour and dignity of every person coming to the party will be protected.
Meanwhile, UP BJP’s spokesperson Rajesh Tripathi claimed that the INDIA alliance is full of contradiction and was an unethical alliance.
“There is no uniformity regarding policies in this opposition alliance and there is a serious question about its leadership,” Tripathi said, adding that the opposition alliance was “limited to only taking photos.”