Why Samajwadi Party is wary of giving Congress a big share of UP seats | Political Pulse News
The tug of war between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress over seat-sharing for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections has gone up a gear as the two parties insist on different things.
While the SP is asking the Congress to share names of “winnable candidates”, the Congress is refusing to do so and has shared a list of 180 Assembly seats. Sources in the SP said the party was not happy with Congress leaders making “unnecessary statements” in the media about the number of seats it should get. The SP, party insiders said, is particularly upset with AICC in-charge Rajendra Pal Gautam, who has said his party should get around 200 seats, roughly half the 403 seats in the UP Assembly.
A highly placed source in the Congress said the SP’s Lok Sabha MP Rajeev Rai had asked Congress general secretary and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra during the high tea at Rahul Gandhi’s residence on October 13 to share a list of seats that the party was looking to contest in the state. Vadra is learnt to have told Rai that a list would be shared soon.
Vadra subsequently held a meeting at her residence on October 19 to discuss the matter with the state Congress leadership. Among those who were present at the meeting were UP state president Aradhana Misra, working president Imran Masood, and Gautam.
Sources said that Vadra told the three that they should focus on “quality of seats” rather than getting fixated on the number. “She told the leaders that we should convey to the SP that we are willing to sit at the negotiation table and not make it full and final. We have sent a list of 180 seats we want to contest. This is how a negotiation starts,” said a source.
“We might settle for something around 80-90 seats,” said another source.
Congress insiders said the party had divided the seats into four categories — A, B, C and D — based on its internal assessment of electoral prospects and organisational strength. “We are fighting in the state to defeat the BJP. We have strong candidates,” Gautam told The Indian Express.
Why Congress is miffed
The SP has adopted a “wait-and-watch” stance, asking the Congress to share a list of “winnable candidates”. “They should give us a list of who they have in mind for seats because if we give them some seats and they field weak candidates, then it will be a loss for the alliance and not just the SP or Congress. We saw how the Congress performed in 2022,” said a senior SP leader.
The Congress contested the 2022 polls on its own — 40% of the seats were given to women — and bagged just two constituencies with a vote share of 2.33%. The Congress had struggled to find candidates for all the constituencies and the SP leadership does not want a repeat in the coming poll battle. The SP had won 111 seats in 2022, with a 36% vote share. It had contested in alliance with several smaller parties, including Om Prakash Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtriya Lok Dal, now in the BJP-led NDA, and Pallavi Patel’s Apna Dal (Kamerawadi).
“We are willing to give the Congress seats which it can win. But they should share the details of the candidates who can win in UP. The Congress organisation in the state is weak and that will reflect in the results too if they do what they did in 2022.”
The SP’s proposal, however, has irked the Congress. “Why should we give them a list of who will contest from where? No party does this anywhere. This is an unreasonable demand from the SP,” said a Congress MP.
Another bone of contention
Sources said another bone of contention between the two parties would be the dozen seats in the Congress list that have sitting SP MLAs. “In our list, we have also named some seats which the SP had won in 2022. We feel we have a better chance of winning those seats,” said a Congress leader. However, SP leaders said it would be nearly impossible to do that.
Sources in the SP said party president Akhilesh Yadav wants to give the Congress fewer than 100 seats. “We can give them something between 50-80 seats. That is what our leader (Akhilesh) had also told us,” said a leader.
Despite the bickering, top leaders of the two parties are confident that the alliance will continue, with Akhilesh and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi having impressed upon them that it should not be jeopardised.
