The Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance which was promising to alter political equations in the Assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh by consolidating Muslim vote bank has collapsed.
The SP was willing to offer only 99 seats to Congress while the grand old party brass wanted 130 seats. SP sources said that Akhilesh Yadav conveyed in categorical terms that his party would not concede more than 99 seats. The alliance was called off with both parties calling the other’s demand for more seats as ‘unreasonable’.
However, both the Congress and SP have kept the prospects of forging alliance for the remaining five phases of Assembly polls alive. Both the SP and Congress will contest all 140 Assembly seats going to the polls in first and second phases on February 11 and February 15.
Sources said the core issue was that how many seats would each get and which seat would go to which party. They said that SP’s refusal to concede Assembly seats falling within Amethi and Rae Bareli lok Sabha seats to Congress derailed the talks.
Keeping in mind the 2019 lok Sabha polls, Congress wanted to contest all 9 Assembly segments in Amethi and Rae Bareli while the SP was willing to concede only one seat in Rae Bareli which was won by the Congress in the 2012 elections.
SP sources however said that all was not over yet and CM Akhilesh Yadav was holding talks with Congress leaders through back channels to iron out the differences.
The speculations of SP-Congress alliance gained credence after the Election Commission on January 16 handed over the SP’s symbol to Akhilesh. Soon after this, Congress leader Gulam Nabi Azad had announced the Congress alliance with the SP. But every thing seems to be over.
The Congress, which has been reduced to a fringe player in UP politics, was desperate for an alliance with the SP to recover some ground. SP maintained that the Congress did not have organisational strength and footprint in the state to demand 130 seats while the Congress was insisting on high number of seats to suit its national party image.
Sources said both parties had sent the right signals till Thursday but trouble erupted after both sat down for seat sharing followed by release of the list of candidates for 207 seats by the SP including those seats won by Congress in 2012 polls. Sources said that besides Assembly seats in Amethi and Rae Bareli, the real tug of war between both parties was over sharing of Muslim-dominated constituencies.