New Delhi: As the SP-Congress alliance tottered on the brink of collapse, the grand old party continued to explore a middle path while its leaders were engaged in last-minute negotiations with the Samajwadi Party brass.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has also been approached by the Congress high command to speak with both SP chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, to save the secular alliance.
Ghulam Nabi Azad, AICC general secretary and UP in-charge, while leaving the party’s central election committee meet which lasted for over an hour on Saturday, said, “A final decision on the Congress' alliance with the SP will be announced on Sunday.”
Top Congress and SP leaders are expected to hold further parleys late on Saturday night. Priyanka Gandhi personally spoke with SP chief and UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav earlier in the day to salvage the situation, sources said.
As SP, Congress alliance totters, Sonia steps in
As the SP-Congress alliance tottered on the brink of collapse, the grand old party continued to explore a middle path.But at this juncture chances of the two parties coming together look grim.
Getting ready to go alone in the UP polls, the Congress in its CEC meet, chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, cleared 140 names for the first two phases. The names will be announced after a final decision on the alliance is taken on Sunday.
The CEC meeting discussed various permutations and combinations to make the alliance click. The Congress, so far, is not willing to compromise on the number of seats. Of the 403 Assembly berths, the Congress has asked for over 100 seats, while the SP is not willing to offer more than 99 seats.
SP MP Naresh Agarwal, when asked about the alliance, said that “it was almost over.” Virtually ridiculing the Congress, Mr Agarwal said, “Congress is behaving as if it is an influential outfit in UP,” and added, “We need to contest over 300 seats.”
The Congress was decimated in Uttar Pradesh in 2012. It has only 22 MLAs in the state Assembly. The SP has also refused to give the Congress maximum representation in the 10 Assembly segments in Amethi and Rae Bareilly and it has put up its own candidates in the nine constituencies the Congress had won in western UP.
