Ending over eight months of suspense, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party are likely to announce their political alliance for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on December 14. The announcement of the formal alliance may be made either in Lucknow or Delhi and may be made jointly by BSP chief Mayawati and SP president Akhilesh Yadav.
The date has been chosen as Kharmas is commencing from December 15 and will last till January 15 on Makar Sankranti. In north India as per the Indian calendar during the duration of Kharmas, no auspicious tasks are undertaken during this period. Some specific activities are strictly prohibited and people do not initiate any new tasks and making any new beginning is not considered favourable.
The BSP had extended its support to SP candidates for byelections to the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats held in March this year and SP had wrested both the seats from the BJP. Later, in May, SP-supported Rashtriya Lok Dal candidate had wrested the Kairana Lok Sabha seats from the BJP and also the SP had wrested the Nurpur Assembly seat in Bijnor district in the byelection.
The Samajwadi Party sources said the alliance would also include the Rashtriya Lok Dal and Apna Dal (Krishna Patel faction) and two Lok Sabha seats are proposed to be offered to the Congress. Both SP and BSP have fielded their candidates in all 230 Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh – thus damaging the electoral prospects of the Congress locked in a direct fight with the incumbent BJP. The BSP further damaging the Congress and benefiting the BJP has entered into alliance with former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi-led Janata Congress and contesting all the seats in Naxal-infested State.
“We are waiting for the poll results of Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and as per our assessment the Congress will do reasonably well in all the three States,” said a senior SP leader adding “we apprehend that the Congress will outrightly reject the offer of two Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh but we wish to keep the channels of communication open with the grand old party”. Congress sources said the offer of two seats is ‘ridiculous and the party rejects it with the contempt it deserves’.
“Regional parties are known for their habit of punching beyond their weight in States where they barely exists while they are cagey in sharing their political space in their parent State,” said a Congress leader, adding “in all the three poll-bound States of MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh , both the SP and BSP made unrealistic demands for the number of seats from us where they exist for the namesake while they want to give us only two Lok Sabha seats in UP where in 2009 Parliament election we had won 21 seats on our own strength”, said a Congress leader.
Moreover, the Congress leader said: “The regional parties must realise that a viable and stable national political alternative needs an anchor to sustain which can only be provided by the Congress with nationwide catchment area.” He added: “The same applies on the BJP with nationwide catchment area is an anchor of the National Democratic Alliance.”