The prospect of a grand anti-BJP alliance in Uttar Pradesh has fallen apart as the Samajwadi Party and the Congress have failed to bring on board the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal, a key partner in the critical western region of the State.
The RLD has now decided to fight without the two parties; it is in talks with a few other smaller parties, mainly from east U.P., Bundelkhand and central U.P. According to sources, the RLD was demanding more seats than the SP and Congress were willing to give it. The party was also not getting some specific seats it desired.
The signs that the RLD may not be a part of the alliance were apparent on Wednesday evening when the party’s top leadership signalled its State leadership to prepare to contest alone and convene a meeting of candidates and office-bearers in Lucknow on Friday.
Amid heightened suspense, on Thursday afternoon, SP vice-president and a key member of Akhilesh Yadav’s team Kironmoy Nanda then made a public assertion that his party was getting into an alliance only with the Congress and not the RLD. As part of the new arrangement, the SP is now expected to contest 300 seats while the Congress will keep 103 in the 403-member Assembly. While the SP currently has 227 seats, the Congress had managed to win only 28 in 2012.
RLD sources said the party was ready to release its first list of 40 candidates for the 73 seats in west U.P. that go to the polls in the first phase. Only five days remain for the nomination.
After a series of meetings by Team Akhilesh, Mr. Nanda said no talks were being held with the RLD.
SP-Congress alliance
“We have held talks only with the Congress. The alliance will only be with the Congress. UP 2017 Vidhan Sabha elections are important and the whole nation is watching us. Our target is not just 2017 but also 2019. That’s why we entered into an alliance with the Congress, and made Akhilesh Yadav the CM again,” the Rajya Sabha member said. He claimed the SP was strong enough to form the government on its own.
Though the top two of the RLD, president Ajit Singh and son Jayant Chaudhary, did not make any public announcement or statement, sources said they had made it clear to the partymen that there would be no alliance. According to RLD sources, the party initially pitched for around 45 seats but as talks began, it scaled the demand down to 35 and by the end was willing to settle for 30. The SP-Congress, however, were not willing to give more than 20-25 seats. “It was not only about the number of seats. We were not getting the seats we wanted,” an RLD leader said.
The seats the RLD wanted were part of the 12 where it had stood second in the last election and have substantial population of the dominant Jats, its core constituency. The RLD has nine MLAs at present. The contentious seats, sources said, include many in the riot-affected areas, triggering speculation that the SP and Congress may be wary of the RLD’s potential to mobilise Muslim and Jat support. “This is not the time for egos and over-assessment of one’s strength and support,” a Congress leader said of the RLD’s insistence on more seats.
Budhana (Muzaffarnagar), Siwalkhas (Meerut), Meerapur (Meerapur), Thana Bhawan (Shamli) and Sadabad (Hathras) were among the seats the RLD wanted.
The Congress and SP leaders indicated that the RLD’s absence from the alliance would not matter, arguing that the party had lost its base vote, the Jats, and would find it difficult to convince Muslims to vote for it due to the communal polarisation post-Muzaffarnagar riots.
The RLD, however, dismissed this blaming the SP for the disagreement. “This is part of SP’s regular betrayal. It has been doing that from the start,” said RLD general secretary Trilok Tyagi, alleging that the SP had changed course at the last moment “under BJP pressure”.
Some RLD leaders also said they felt insulted as the SP leadership refused to engage with them but deputed the Congress to discuss seat arrangement with it.
“It appears they were not interested in the alliance in the first place. The SP has shown a small heart. The number of seats was not an issue, that could have been negotiable. Some leaders in the SP are misguiding Akhilesh Yadav, ” an RLD State office-bearer said.
The SP and Congress are still finalising sharing of seats and a formal announcement on the alliance could be made on Friday.
The RLD has summoned its State general secretaries, district and city presidents, along with prospective candidates from central U.P., Purvanchal and Bundelkhand to Lucknow on Friday to finalise the ticket. It is also in touch with around a dozen small parties, including BSP rebel R.K Chaudhary’s BS4 and the Krishna Patel-faction of the Apna Dal, to build an inter-region alliance. Sources said Ajit Singh had even telephoned JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav after talks with the SP and the Congress fell apart.
Meanwhile, two expelled SP MLAs Mukesh Sharma and Bhagwan Sharma alias Guddu Pandit from Shikarpur and Debai seats (both in Bulandshahr) joined the RLD after a snub by the BJP and Akhilesh Yadav, who refused to entertain them after they rebelled and cross-voted during the RS elections.
