Following the Congress party’s loss in three significant states—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh—the Samajwadi Party appears to be invigorated. The party’s top leadership perceives this outcome as granting them an advantage in seat distribution within the alliance. Consequently, the Congress might face limitations in securing as many seats as previously demanded due to a perceived lack of merit post-elections.
Since past few months, as the clamour for Congress winning at least two states out of the three in Hindi belt was growing. The Priyanka Gandhi’s team had started to tighten its claim (of Congress being a major player in UP) in order to seek as many seats as possible for Lok Sabha alliance. The reason being, the sister Gandhi had found UP a politically fertile ground due to muslim population turning towards Congress.
A Congress leader said, “Though the Muslim electorate turning towards Congress would be seen in the upcoming national elections (UP has around 19 percent Muslim population). She wanted to resurrect Congress and build the state cadre on the basis of this and have hold of a state which has most number of Lok Sabha seats.” He further added, “The win in neighbouring states could have been the spurr for Congress’ political growth.
However, those expectations fell flat after the Congress showed a disastrous performance in all the three states.” Ex Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said at India Manch “Seat sharing in the INDIA bloc will be easy now after the Congress’s defeat in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, as the ego that the party carried for long has been neutralised. Now we are united and ready to take on the zero-tolerance government, which has been reduced to zero. In this government, people are fed up with their policies and want change as they were not able to fulfil the electoral promises they made.”
There is a common impression within SP leadership that Akhilesh Yadav will have more leverage over the Congress in UP. Not because SP performed well in Madhya Pradesh (as they were not able to poll respectable vote percentage). But because Congress unceremoniously rejected to be part of alliance at the last moment and that too unilaterally.