SP moves on, says can’t wait for Cong
POLL SEASON May tie up with BSP, GGP in MP and Chhattisgarh
LUCKNOW: The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Saturday ruled out an alliance with the Congress for assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in November and December. “The Congress has made us wait for long. We cannot wait anymore,’’ SP chief Akhilesh Yadav told journalists in Lucknow
The announcement came three days after Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati said no to a tie-up with the Congress for the polls.
Yadav said the SP will fight elections in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and speak to the Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP) and BSP for an alliance in the two states. “We are already in touch with the GGP for an alliance in Chhattisgarh. We will do the same in MP (Madhya Pradesh).”
The SP’S best performance outside its stronghold of Uttar Pradesh has been in Madhya Pradesh, where it won seven out of 161 seats it contested in 2003. In 2013, the party drew a blank in the state.
The combined vote share of the Congress (36.38%), the BSP (6.29%) and SP (1.20%) — 43.87% — in Madhya Pradesh was almost equal to the BJP’S 44.88% in 2013. The BJP has been in power in the state since 2003. In Chhattisgarh, the BSP (4.27%) and Congress’s (40.29) combined vote share of 44.56 was more than the ruling BJP’S 41.04% in 2013.
Madhya Pradesh Congress spokesman J P Dhanopia blamed the SP’S unrealistic demand for seats for the failure in coalition talks. “Like the BSP, the SP’S demand for seats was unrealistic given their lack ground support in the state. They do not have a single seat (in Madhya Pradesh),’’ he said. “They were under the impression that Congress would go for a coalition in any circumstances, but they were wrong. We can and will fight and win alone.”
The SP had on September 28 announced its plan of contesting 24 out of the 230 assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh.
Separately, Yadav said the question was irrelevant as of now when asked whether the SP would support Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister if a Congress-led alliance won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. “As of now, I want that the Bjp-led government is voted out of power,” said Yadav. NEWDELHI: Next year’s Lok Sabha elections will be a contest between the “tried, tested and failed idea” of a “mahagatbandhan” (grand alliance) of opposition parties and the promise of stability and coherence held out by a Bharatiya Janata Party (Bjp)-led ruling dispensation that has a strong leader at the helm, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Saturday.
India’s aspirational society will not ‘commit suicide’ by choosing the former over the latter, Jaitley said at the 16th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
Mahagatbandhans are inherently unstable and their longevity is limited, the minister said, citing the examples of previous coalition governments led by Charan Singh, VP Singh, Chandra Shekhar, HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
“(The) 2019 (national elections) will be a choice between a stable government with a coherent policy and a strong leader versus a completely anarchic combination,” Jaitley said.
His remarks come in the backdrop of efforts by the Congress and other opposition parties to cobble together an alliance to take on the BJP led by Narendra Modi in the 2019 elections. A successful coalition should have a “very strong nucleus,” he said.
The finance minister noted that the BJP under Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Modi had provided such a nucleus to the previous and current National Democratic Alliance governments.
“You cannot have a nucleus of a handful of people... it will then be an unstable nucleus,” Jaitley said. Next year is not a time when one can opt for an anarchic combination, he said, adding that an aspirational India, having missed the industrial revolution of the 1970s, wouldn’t back such an alliance.
“There are some (constituents of the proposed grand alliance) whose leaders are temperamentally maverick, there are some whose interests are purely regional — “give my state extra money,” (they say); and there are some who only want some criminal cases to be closed,” he said.
The Congress took exception to Jaitley’s remarks. Congress spokesperson Pranav Jha said rather than comment on opposition unity efforts, BJP should worry about a ‘maha gathbandhan’ of unemployed youngsters,
Like the BSP, the SP’S demand for seats was unrealistic given their lack ground support in the state. They do not have a single seat (in MP) JP DHANOPIA, MP Cong spokesman