Congress’ dream to crumble the BJP bastion through the coalition power seems to be crushed with Samajwadi Party(SP)’s Akhilesh Yadav more interested in ties with the Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) than with Congress.
Uttar Pradesh with 80 Lok Sabha seats is the last bus that the Congress has to catch at any costs to be a leader again in the Indian politics. Many dreams had been woven by the Congress Party investing solely on the alliance politics, the major one of that being Rahul Gandhi for the PM post against Narendra Modi.
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Congress has nothing but only a few MP seats from Uttar Pradesh and it has been decimated in the state since the Assembly elections last year. Simply to say there is nothing with the Congress now, which will lure the other parties to come and stick on it.
The Congress’s only hope is in the much hyped ‘Grand Alliance’ with SP, BSP, Ajith Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal(RLD), and many other local parties. But the indivisibility of the alliance is doubtable as Akhilesh Yadav of SP seems to have some other plans. There are also doubts regarding the support of BSP’s Mayawati.
Though Congress says publically that the alliance is for preserving the secularism and democracy in this country, their sole aim is to grab power in whatever ways possible even at the cost of their own party’s integrity as seen in Kerala where KC(M) had been provided with the Party’s Rajya Sabha seat.
Two things regarding the ground realities in UP we have to note here:
1. The local parties in UP, after the recent by-elections, have got confidence that they can win BJP if they shun reject their age-old rivalry.
2. The political parties including Akhilesh Yadav’s SP are cautious about the Congress’ “Rahul Vs Modi” 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Two strong bastions of Congress in UP are Raibareily and Amethi, for only these two seats the other coalition partners feel they do not have to follow the Congress diktats. Akhilesh’s SP is looking forward to seat sharing with the BSP and they are even ready to play subordinate to Mayawati’s BSP. Akhilesh Yadav himself had said that he was ready to give up a few seats to BSP for the sake of SP-BSP alliance, after the Kairana by-election results. A seat sharing with BSP is sensible for Akhilesh, but the same with Congress in their current condition is risky.
As per the reports of the newsagency UNI, the 2 seats that SP had been willing to give Congress were that of Raibareily and Amethi which are currently held by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi respectively. A senior SP leader told the news agency that the Samajwadi Party was ready for an alliance with BSP as it was more helpful.
Samajwadi Party’s recent decision to contest in all 230 assembly constituencies of Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and also on all five parliamentary seats alone should be seen under this scenario.
Congress is yet to figure in the alliance talks as informed by an SP MLC. Anyhow as a solace to Congress he said that they would not break the tradition of not fielding candidates against Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi in Amethi and Rae Bareilly respectively. Thus they have made clear indirectly that these two seats are also their charity to Congress, like the promise of an alliance.
On Monday, News 18 reported that Akhilesh Yadav’s party did not want to take the Congress on board in UP as the latter did not fit in the narrative SP and BJP wish to build against BJP. Hindustan Times reported an information from Akhilesh’s close aid that BSP and SP would not need any partners if they stood together.
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