Akhilesh’s outburst may hitSP-Congress LS equations in UP

The act of announcing Congress candidates for constituencies where the Samajwadi Party (SP) was expecting a small share of Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh has resulted in an open feud between the two major partners, the Congress and the SP of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (I.N.D.I.A). This, according to Congress leaders, has made an alliance between the two parties in Uttar Pradesh a bigger challenge.
Before the list was released, the two parties had discussed seat-sharing where the SP was willing to settle for five seats in MP—one of these was a seat that SP had won, and the remaining four were where it was runners-up in the 2018 Assembly elections. However, Congress wants to give the SP only two seats. Though there was no conclusive resolution on seat-sharing in the meeting, Congress took a unilateral decision by announcing its list of candidates.
Someone in the know said, “Since Congress had offered only two seats and the alliance could not have fructified in that meeting, there were whispers within Congress that the SP was contemplating to agree on just two seats for the sake of unity. The SP leadership must have been of the view that this partnership could prove to be a confidence-building measure, eventually helping it to smoothen the relationship in Uttar Pradesh. However, all hopes got dashed after the Congress declared its candidates.”
In a media interaction, Akhilesh Yadav, the main Opposition leader in Uttar Pradesh, said, “If Congress didn’t want to give seats (in MP), then they should have said it earlier. Today, SP is fighting only on seats where it has its own organisation. Now after Madhya Pradesh, I know that the I.N.D.I.A bloc is for parliamentary elections on a national level. If Congress continues to behave like this, then who will trust them? If we fight with confusion in mind against the BJP, then we won’t succeed.”
Moreover, when asked about allegations of betrayal against Congress, ex-Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath said, “Are bhai chhodo Akhilesh Vakhilesh (leave queries on Akhilesh and whatever).”
Experts believe, that Akhilesh Yadav is feeling genuinely betrayed. But the public outburst against Congress does not seem very mature. An expert said: “Politics is something where the public should not know what you are feeling. It is the place of political pragmatism. Since Congress, as they say, played its unholy card for its alliance partner, there is always a way to settle your scores or differences. You don’t go out angry and spill out your feelings.”
Political pundits believe that the Congress did not offer them seats because of certain reasons. The national party did not want to give SP entry in Madhya Pradesh which they would have thought would play out to be a spoiler in the future. When a party gets entry into a state by winning some seats, it tries to expand its base and they do so at the cost of the other party.
Several SP leaders The Sunday Guardian spoke to said that Akhilesh Yadav’s inner circle was furious with Congress. However, an SP spokesperson said, “But if there is high level coordination between top leaders of Congress and our party, things may come back on track.”