SP SEEKS SEATS IN 3 OTHER STATES FOR UP PACT WITH CONG

NEW DELHI: The Samajwadi Party (SP) is looking to impose new conditions on the Congress for a crucial Opposition alliance in Uttar Pradesh ahead of next year’s Lok Sabha elections, even as senior leaders from both sides are in touch to hammer out differences.

On Sunday, senior SP leaders indicated that the party’s rank and file wants seats from the Congress in the assembly poll-bound states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in exchange for a pact in UP, where the party already has an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). “After fighting against each other in these states, an alliance only for UP would look absurd,” SP general secretary Kiranmay Nanda told HT on Sunday.

HT had reported on June 6 that the SP wants to spread its wings in three other Hindi-belt states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Assembly polls in these three states are due next month.

Earlier the BSP, too, demanded a pan-india pact with the Congress as the two sides were negotiating alliances in the poll-bound states.

Party chief Mayawati eventually picked Ajit Jogi’s Janata Congress Chhattisgarh over the Congress in Chhattisgarh, and has announced candidates for 22 seats in Madhya Pradesh. Congress leaders, however, have not given up hopes of a wider alliance with the BSP.

Leaders from the SP and the Congress also maintain that they are hoping to hammer out a deal in the coming weeks. In mid-september, senior leaders from the Congress and the SP met to discuss the modalities of a possible alliance.