A grand alliance in the making?

A grand alliance of the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Congress and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) seems to be fructifying in Uttar Pradesh. The SP has reportedly agreed to apportion 100 seats for the Congress and RLD in the Assembly polls to be held early next year.

The biggest hurdle to an alliance formation is the inner contradictions of the SP: party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav is believed to be against giving away seats to the Congress.

His son and UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is, on the other hand, keen that an alliance is cobbled together. In an interview to BusinessLine earlier this month, Akhilesh had said, “If we stitch up an alliance with the Congress and the RLD, we will cross 300 seats in UP. But Netaji (Mulayam) does not agree. And he will take the final call.”

In this backdrop, and given Mulayam’s past flip-flops, the fate of the ongoing talks between the SP, which has reportedly proposed 78 seats to the Congress and 22 to the RLD, still hangs in the balance till an official announcement is made.

However, at a function for the release of a book on former Prime Minister Chowdhary Charan Singh at Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav’s residence on Friday afternoon, various constituents of the erstwhile Janata Dal gathered along with the Congress, and the conversation mainly centred around the proposed alliance. Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ahmed Patel were present at the venue, along with RLD chief Ajit Singh, JD(S) chief and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, and the SP’s Amar Singh.

“We should all come together to defeat the communal forces,” said Sharad Yadav. However, his party has practically no stakes in Uttar Pradesh, and the SP, the party ruling the politically crucial State, still seemed to be hedging its bets.

“We had invited Mulayam Singh for this function as well. But he dispatched Amar Singh. If Mulayam had come, there was a possibility of some serious conversation given that Ajit Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ahmed Patel too were present. But what serious conversation can one have with Amar Singh?” said a leader of the proposed alliance.

“Mulayam Singh is clearly more bothered about settling scores with his son than counter the communal forces in UP. The sagacity shown by Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar before the Bihar Assembly elections is not seen in UP,” this leader told BusinessLine.

Engaging in an indirect attack on BJP, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Friday warned people against those who had promised “ acchhe din ”, exhorting voters to “teach them a lesson” in the upcoming State Assembly elections.

“People have come to know the reality of acchhe din by standing in long queues (before banks)...now it is the turn of the people to stand in long queues at election time and teach them a lesson,” the Chief Minister, who inaugurated projects worth ₹51,000 crore here, said at a public meeting.

Akhilesh also took a dig at the “earthquake” remarks by leaders of national parties and exhorted people not to be influenced by such talk.

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi had threatened to “expose the personal corruption of [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi” while claiming that he was not being allowed to speak in Parliament as it would result in an “earthquake”.

On Thursday, Rahul’s remarks were ridiculed by Modi.

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