After days of negotiation and playing hardball, the Samajwadi Party and the Congress forged an alliance for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Senior leaders of both the parties worked behind the scene to sort out differences over seat sharing. In the process, both sides conceded some ground to each other, paving the way for the historic alliance.
Out of the total 403 Assembly seats in UP, the Samajwadi Party will contest on 298 seats while the rest 105 will go to the Congress.
This is the first time both the SP and the Congress are contesting election as alliance partners. The Congress hopes that the alliance with the SP will add Muslim and Yadav votes to its traditional eight to ten percent core vote bank in the State and could become a powerful combination.
On the other hand, the SP hopes that the alliance will help it consolidate the Muslim votes and also bring in Upper Caste and traditional Congress voters.
In the 2012 Assembly polls, the SP had won 224 seats with a vote share of 29.3 per cent, while the Congress bagged 28 seats with an 11.7 per cent vote share. Coming together of the two parties would pave the way for a three-cornered fight, with Mayawati’s BSP and the BJP being the other major contenders for power.
Given the SP-Congress’ performance in the last Assembly polls, the new alliance could pose a tough challenge to its rivals.
SP State president Naresh Uttam and his Congress counterpart Raj Babbar announced the pre-poll alliance in a joint Press conference in lucknow.
Naresh Uttam said the aim of the alliance was to place Uttar Pradesh as a frontline developed State and making Akhilesh Yadav 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 Bharatiya Janata Party,” he said.
On his part, 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, “the Congress has taken a historic decision of entering into an alliance with the Samajwadi Party’’.
“The SP and the Congress have forged pre-poll alliance and with 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 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 the SP-Congress alliance will work for their empowerment, Babbar said, “If the alliance was voted to power then we will present an agenda of governance in UP which will seek to provide a Government with transparency and accountability.”
Babbar parried questions over the “27 saal se UP Behaal” yatra taken out by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in September last year. The yatra had specifically targeted the misrule of Akhilesh Government and had accused the Samajwadi Party of ignoring the interests of the farmers.
The announcement of the pre-poll alliance preceded a dispute on the place of the joint Press conference. The SP wanted to hold the Press at its State office, but Babbar refused to go there. 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 SP 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. While the SP had offered 99 seats, the Congress continued to bargain for more seats.
leaders like RJD president lalu Prasad, who has family ties with Akhilesh, also played a ‘behind the scene’ role in coming together of the two parties. “I have been consistently in talks with the SP and Congress’ top leadership for stitching an alliance between the two parties in Uttar Pradesh,” he said in a tweet.
Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad told a TV channel that the alliance was forged to prevent a split in secular votes which would have benefited BJP. He rejected reports in a section of the media that talks had hit a hurdle over Congress’s demand for all assembly segments falling in Amethi and Rae Bareli Parliamentary constituencies.
“There was no such talk. We wanted seats in every region, be it eastern UP, western or central UP, Bundelkhand...We had earlier decided to go it alone but dropped the idea after secular forces felt we should come together to thwart attempts by BJP to come to power.
“In the mean time, as SP lost heft due to infighting, we demanded 150 seats. We wanted a respectable seat-sharing arrangement. This decision has been made for the country’s unity, for keeping secularism alive,” he said.
Hours after the pact was announced, the SP released a list of 77 nominees, leaving three Assembly seats for Congress falling in Sonia’s Rae Bareli Parliamentary constituency. According to SP sources, the Chief Minister had initially offered 100 seats to the Congress but they demanded 120. The SP then argued that it had 234 sitting legislators and there were some others who would also contest. Thus, the ruling party needed at least 300 of the 403 seats.
But, Congress leaders had informed the SP that in such a scenario, there cannot be an alliance.