Before going official, SP, Cong bargain hard

OVER 24 hours after leaders of Congress and Samajwadi Party said that they would fight the UP Assembly polls together, hard negotiations over seat sharing between the two parties and Ajit Singh’s RLD have delayed formal announcement of the alliance.

AICC general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad, who till Tuesday was confident of working out the seat sharing arrangement in the next 48 hours, Wednesday said it could “even take 100 hours”.

Sources said the parties had handed each other a list of “nonnegotiable” seats. SP, it is learnt, has listed 290 non-negotiable seats. Names of 15 “non-negotiable” seats are present in the list of both parties.

Sources in both parties confirmedthatspwaswillingtoleave only 80-85 seats for Congress. Congress sources, meanwhile, said the party was pushing for a number close to 100. “We are not getting seats of our choice,” a senior party leader said.

Congress sources said the party has been told that it would get 40 out of the 140 seats which go to polls in the first and second phases and the party has started identifying candidates.

Congress has sitting MLAS in five of the 40 seats it has been promised in the first two phases. Congress has laid claim for Lucknow Cantonment. The seat was won last time by Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who has now moved to BJP. Months ago, SP declared Aparna Yadav, wife of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s younger son Prateek, as its nominee from the seat.

Talks with RLD are also stuck over the number of seats being offered to them. Sources said RLD has been offered 15 seats while its expectations are nearly double that figure. While the Krishna Patel faction of Apna Dal has shown interest to be part of the alliance, Congress and SP want to resolve seat sharing between themselves first and then move towards smaller partners.

The contentious seats include a segment each in Rae Bareli and Amethi, Lok Sabha constituencies of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. Seven of the 10 seats in Rae Bareli and Amethi have sitting SP MLAS. All these are non-negotiable for SP, while Congress wants more seats in the Gandhi pocket borough. Both parties are unwilling to leave the Amethi Assembly seat and Bachhrawan reserved constituency in Rae Bareli.

Apart from these, some seats in Unnao, Bangararmau and Bhagwantnagar are being claimed by both the sides. SP had won 58 out of the 85 reserved seats, but Congress feels that it stands a better chance on some of these seats.