After a warm meeting with Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav at the former’s residence in Lucknow to discuss tie-up for the UP polls, Rashtriya Lok Dal president Jayant Chaudhary is likely to hold a joint press conference with him in the state capital to announce the seat sharing.
There are reports that Jayant and Akhilesh will address a joint rally in Meerut on December 7 and will also announce seat sharing between the SP and the RLD. However, the party insiders said the meeting scheduled in Meerut had probably been called off and would be rescheduled again.
“The RLD is being given 36 seats in the UP assembly election under the seat sharing formula but the party is demanding six more seats totaling 42 as its share. The SP president has agreed to give 36 seats to RLD but the pact is stuck on six seats. This has delayed the forging of alliance as of now and the status of it is currently in a fluid state,” a party leader said.
He said the RLD had also cancelled the November 30 rally in Fatehpur as its leaders needed more time to thrash out an agreement on seat sharing.
The RLD leader said the joint press conference of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and RLD president Jayant Chaudhary would be held very soon in Lucknow in the days to come.
A spokesman of RLD said the meeting to be held in Meerut on December 7 was earlier scheduled on December 2 and it was extended. He said RLD had no plans of a joint meeting with SP in Meerut on December 7 as of now.
The sources said the SP and the RLD would seal the pact very soon.
“The campaign for the UP assembly elections is gearing up and major opponent Bharatiya Janata Party already had put the campaign in high gear. So the RLD and the SP will not have enough time to remain busy in finalising the seats,” they said.
They added that RLD was also in a bargaining position with the Congress.
“The RLD chief had caught up with Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi at Amausi airport in Lucknow recently, giving rumour mills enough fodder to churn that the RLD and the Congress were in talks for seat sharing,” the sources said.
They said the RLD chief was judging the options and feasibility of the alliance.
“An alliance with SP is really going to be fruitful for RLD in view of the SP support base in west UP. But SP’s alliance with other political parties, like the Aam Aadmi Party (Sanjay Singh met Akhilesh on Wednesday) may lessen the space for the RLD to get a complete toe hold to claim more seats in the UP assembly elections,” they said.