New Delhi
As the Opposition is gearing up to create a united front against the BJP at the national level, individual parties in Uttar Pradesh are keenly assessing consequences in terms of profit and loss in forming an alliance and contesting alone. Senior party leaders across major parties say the situation is complex and each party will need to take a “step back” to form a united front.
Sources suggest that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has sent a member from her team to communicate with Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati to bring her to the common table. However, sources suggest that if the Congress is successful to get BSP onboard, the grand old party would not be in need of an alliance with the Samajwadi Party, which is being rigid and is signalling that it will keep the most number of seats with it. It is also believed that RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary may dump his alliance partner, the SP, and stich up an alliance with the Congress along with Chandrashekhar Azad’s party.
Aditya Rathi, a political observer based in UP, said, “All these equations will work only if SP is adamant about not giving enough or proportionate seats to Congress. But there is another threshold that we need to keep an eye on. There is a grand Opposition meet going to happen in Bihar and Lalu Yadav will try to convince Akhilesh Yadav to contest the general elections in alliance with Congress. If that works, then it will be a grand fight in Uttar Pradesh. And again, it will be an altogether different equation. The end point is, once the Opposition meet ends, all things will become clear.”
On the condition of anonymity, a Samajwadi Party spokesperson said that there were talks in political circles of Congress negotiating with the BSP. “But for us, the alliance or seat sharing is not on our agenda. We are trying to strengthen ourselves.”
An ex-Union minister, who was also a Congress lawmaker from UP, told The Sunday Guardian, “If all the parties come together, we will have to see how the Muslim, Yadav and Dalit combination works. But it is sure that we will be able to make a dent in BJP prospects. We just need to work on the caste chemistry. However, SP may not be willing to give as many seats to Congress as the latter wants. Last time (2009), we asked for 22 seats, but they refused to take Congress party along and we contested separately, yet we were able to win the same 22 seats we had asked for. So, it was their loss in the end. And if Congress got a less percentage of votes in the Assembly elections, I don’t think that the Congress’ vote share will go down from UP in the Lok Sabha elections. So many people want to vote for us. There isn’t any substantial talk on the matter of seat-sharing formula, but let’s see what happens this time.”
An ex -district president of Congress in UP said, “It is difficult for BSP to be in alliance with the Congress. They are BJP’s puppets. Whatever the saffron camp tells them, they do it. So for the Congress, if there is a competent leader in Uttar Pradesh, we can win more than 20 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Congress is a national party and the only alternative to the BJP. So that will help the party. But things aren’t that easy when we talk about UP.”