After days of negotiation and playing hard ball, the Samajwadi Party and Congress forged an alliance for the UP assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. A formal announcement of the alliance was made here on Sunday. Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav will be the leader of the coalition. Out of them total 403 assembly seats in UP, Samajwadi party will contest 298 seats while the rest 105 will go to the Congress.
The state presidents of the Samajwadi party and the Congress announced the pre poll alliance ion a joint press conference here on Sunday.
The state president of the Samajwadi party Naresh Uttam said that the aim and objective of the alliance is to place Uttar Pradesh as frontline developed state and making Akhilesh Yadav, the chief minister of the state for the second consecutive term.
“The coming together of the SP and the Congress is not merely an electoral alliance but we seek to usher in a new era of development and social justice in UP by dislodging the caste and communal forces led by the Bahujan Samaj party and Bhartiya Janata Party’’, said Naresh Uttam.
Issuing an appeal to the people of the state Naresh Uttam said the Samajwadi party seeks the blessings of the people for the alliance so that UP can be freed from the vicious grip of the caste and communal forces.
The state Congress president Raj Babbar said `` considering the prevailing atmosphere in UP and in deference of the wishes of the people , intellectuals and the people ideologically close to the Congress and for the development of UP, Congress has taken a historic decision of entering into an alliance with the Samajwadi party’’.
“SP and Congress have forged pre poll alliance and the combined strength of both the parties, we will stop the forces pursuing the divisive agenda by creating polarisation of the voters on the communal lines’’, said Raj Babbar adding `` both the parties will strengthen the secular forces in UP’’.
“The alliance rests on the solid foundation of the positive works done by the akhilesh Yadav government during the last five years. This alliance under the young leadership of Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav will seek the mandate of the people irrespective of caste and religion’’, said Raj Babbar.
Assuring the youth that SP-Congress alliance will work for their empowerment Raj Babbar said `` if the alliance is voted to power then we will present an agenda of governance in UP which will seek to provide a government with transparency and accountability’’.
Raj Babbar parried questions over the ``27 saal se UP Behaal’ yatra taken out by the Congress Vice president Rahul Gandhi in September last year. The yatra had specifically targeted the misrule of Akhilesh Yadav government and had had accused the Samajwadi party of ignoring the interests of the farmers.
lashing out at the demonetisation of the high value currency notes Raj Babbar said the ``ban on high values currency notes only benefitted the rich and the industrialist while ruined the poor and the farmers’’. He said the SP-Congress alliance will ensure justice with the farmers and the working class’’.
The announcement of the pre poll alliance was preceded by utter chaos as the dispute arose on the place of the joint press conference for announcing the alliance. Earlier it was announced that the joint press conference will be held at the state office of the Samajwadi party. The state Congress president Raj Babbar refused to visit the SP office for the press conference scheduled to be held at 5.30 pm. later the state SP president announced that the venue of the press conference has been shifted to a hotel. .
Both the congress and the SP arrived at a consensus following numerous rounds of discussion in the past few weeks. While the Congress was looking to take smaller allies like the Rashtriya lok Dal on board, the Samajwadi Party only wanted an alliance with the Congress.
Talks between the two parties appeared to hit a wall on Saturday over seat-sharing, which led Congress president Sonia Gandhi to intervene and reach out to Akhilesh Yadav. While the Samajwadi Party had offered 99 seats, the Congress continued to bargain for more seats. Akhilesh Yadav was reluctant to part with more since seats as his party wanted to contest 300 seats on its own.