UP poll debacle triggers SP-Congress blame game

The humiliating defeat of the SP and the Congress in the recently concluded elections may have left the party leadership stunned into silence but the blame game has just begun.

Even as SP president Akhilesh Yadav made it clear that his alliance with the Congress would continue irrespective of the results, his father Mulayam Singh Yadav said that the alliance with the Congress was responsible for SP’s poor performance.

Mr Shivpal Yadav has earlier said that the alliance was “not needed.”

Former SP minister Ravidas Mehrotra who lost his Lucknow central seta to the BJP, also blamed the Congress for his defeat. “The rebel Congress candidates damaged us. Had we contested on our own, we would have won many more seats,” he said.

Senior Congress leader and spokesman Satyadev Tripathi admitted, “There is a general feeling among party cadres that we lost mainly due to the alliance”.

Ajai Kumar Lallu, one of the two MLAs of the Congress to get re-elected, said that the strategy to focus on muslims by the alliance as well as BSP led to a sharp division in votes. “We should have had an all inclusive campaign — we left the field clear for BJP as far as Hindu votes were concerned,” he said.

While a large section in the SP wants the leadership to call off the alliance, the Congress leaders also feel that it would be better if they started preparing for Lok Sabha elections on their own. A senior Congress leader said, “There is a sharp difference in the mindset of the SP and the Congress and while two leaders may sit together and forge the alliance, it is difficult for party workers to accept each other. The Congress has to learn to walk alone and must stick to its decision too — the latter being more important”.

SP leaders are now waiting for the leadership issues to be resolved before they raise the issue on the party forum.

If the party reins are handed back to Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, the alliance will be called off on its own but if Mr Akhilesh Yadav continues in his post, we will try and convince him to snap ties with the Congress.