Lucknow: Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav, on Thursday, announced that his party would not enter into an alliance with any other party.
“We will contest the polls alone and there will be no alliance with Lalu (Yadav) or Nitish (Kumar). If anyone wants to merge his party, we can consider,” he said at a press conference here.
The declaration comes a day after Mr Yadav held a series of meetings with political strategist Prashant Kishor, JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav and RLD president Ajit Singh in Delhi and Lucknow.
Mr Yadav’s announcement brought disappointment for those who were expecting an alliance with ‘like-minded’ parties. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav who did not appear too keen on cobbling together a coalition, on Wednesday said that forming a coalition was not that easy.
The fact that the SP wanted to go it alone was reflected in the Chief Minister’s remark that the ruling party can win the election on its own.
But, as the alliance picture was not clear, he had also said that in case of pre-poll tie-up, they could garner 300 seats. Uttar Pradesh Assembly has 403 seats. The Congress had, all along, been denying reports of an alliance with SP.
Sources close to the SP president said that talks with parties fizzled out after the SP insisted on merger before the elections.
Meanwhile, the faction-ridden top leadership of the Samajwadi Party stands divided and this time on the issue of appointment of a new leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha after incumbent Ram Gopal Yadav was expelled from the party.
Party sources said while SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav favours Beni Prasad Verma as party’s new leader in the upper house, CM Akhilesh Yadav is batting for Naresh Agarwal.
