Keen to end the BJP’s uninterrupted 15-year rule in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress is moving closer to sealing a deal with the Bahujan Samaj Party for the Assembly elections, scheduled to be held around November this year.
Senior Madhya Pradesh Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia are believed to be in touch with BSP chief Mayawati and senior BSP leader Satish Misra for a pre-poll pact. The BSP secured over 6% of the votes in the last Assembly polls in 2013. The Congress will look for a similar tie-up in neighbouring Chhattisgarh as well, scheduled to hold elections together with MP and Rajasthan.
Strong in Rajasthan
The party, however, may not be keen to cede much ground to a third player in Rajasthan as the Congress has won six of the eight by-polls held in the State since 2013 including two Lok Sabha seats — Ajmer and Alwar — in February this year.
“We are in dialogue with all like-minded parties and the ultimate objective is to form a people’s government in Madhya Pradesh that is committed to the upliftment of the farmers, youth, women and the marginalised sections,” Congress campaign chief Jyotiraditya Scindia told The Hindu .
Mr Scindia didn’t specify the contours of the dialogue but sources said it hasn’t yet reached the stage where Congress and the BSP have started discussing seats. In 2013 Asssembly elections, BSP won four seats but got 6.29% of the votes.
The Congress, on the other hand, managed to get 36.38% of the popular votes but won only 58 of the 230 seats in the State. If the vote shares of the Congress and BSP are added, then the combined vote share goes up to 42.67%, just about two percentage points lower than the BJP’s 2013 vote share.
Tribal ally
More importantly, Congress sources claim, a pre-poll alliance with non-BJP parties would have taken the Opposition’s tally over 100 seats and Congress alone would have won close to 90 seats. Hence the party is also in talks with the regional Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP) that can help the Congress consolidate its vote share in the State’s tribal belt.
After the Karnataka experiment, the Congress is keen on preventing any split in the anti-BJP vote and wants pre-poll tie-ups in States to set the stage for a larger rainbow coalition of non-BJP parties for the 2019 lok Sabha polls.
“In MP and Chhattisgarh, it makes sense for such a pre-poll tie up, but in Rajasthan, it is a different scene altogether. We were in power in Rajasthan until 2013, have won most by-elections since then and can come to power easily on our own. Unless we get some 20 plus Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in a pre-poll alliance for the 2019, it doesn’t make sense to cede ground,” said a Delhi-based Congress leader familiar with Rajasthan politics.
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