SP will betough onseat-sharingif it joins hands with Congress

By saying that Opposition parties will have to rally behind the Samajwadi Party (SP) to defeat the BJP, Akhilesh Yadav has put out a tough message for the Opposition camp that the party is in no mood of being flexible while discussing the seat-sharing formula for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The central leadership of SP may have indicated to its rank and file that party supremo, Akhilesh Yadav, is in no mood to give up his electoral territories to parties which are trying to partner with them. A senior SP functionary said, “There are talks within the party that the leaders will, in no way, give up their advanced electoral standing (compared to other anti-BJP parties in the state) and let other parties walk on the carpet laid out by our party. We can’t give anyone our way to tread on and be pathless ourselves. It’s about our survival and the science of elections in UP is very complicated. If we this time give away the seats, it would take us more time to rebuild.”
A party insider suggested that the SP leadership may already have decided candidates on around 20 Lok Sabha seats. The SP boss is also believed to have said to its leaders that the national elections is not their battle as the party won’t get to rule at the Centre (as it is a state party with a hold in only a single state of Uttar Pradesh). A Samajwadi Party leader described the whole idea of Akhilesh’s strong dislike for giving substantial space to Congress and other parties as “why sacrifice our electoral space for other parties and get less in return”. Senior leaders in the party suggest that the SP supremo has conveyed to the party leaders the importance of not supporting for a cause (Opposition unity) as it would be at the cost of his party. Senior leaders also admit that the SP boss has worked hard for the elevation of his party. And he also wants to provide solid future to its leaders who have sincerely worked for the party.
As for now, the dislike for the alliance is not final. The current resistance from the SP boss is only because he knows that it will have to give away a considerable chunk to the grand old party to get them on-board. An SP spokesperson told The Sunday Guardian, “The party wants alliance with Congress but at the same time it does not want to give it more than 10 seats. At the same time Congress is a national party and would certainly want more than 10. Thus, the alliance has become a complicated issue where both the parties would be fighting for political survival.” However, against all the assertions by Akhilesh Yadav in closed door meets, an all-party meet held in Patna this week has concluded with an understanding between all the parties to contest the Lok Sabha elections together. A person aware of the developments in the Opposition meet said, “Everybody has agreed to contest together and everybody wants to fight the BJP for a bigger cause.” Analysts based in UP think this election in UP will decide a number of things within the Opposition as well as within the ruling party in the state. If there is an alliance among Opposition here, it will give a very tough time to BJP or maybe give them sleepless nights. They will have to do much more than what they have been doing generally. But if there is no alliance, it will damage the Opposition camp in a very broad way. All the anti- BJP parties will have to resent the decision of going it alone in UP. It may even spell doom on them. Where the major victim would be SP. There would even be a tight contest on the 5 seats which they had won in 2019.”
It is worth mentioning that the SP and BSP were in alliance in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Moreover, the SP had taken fewer seats (37) than the BSP (38). However, the results had disappointed both the parties, with SP winning just 5 and BSP only 10.