Cong-SP talks on alliance reach dead end

Tribune News Service

Lucknow/Delhi, January 21

The SP-Congress alliance may not happen. Samajwadi Party sources say talks have reached a dead end with no agreement on seat-sharing.

 The SP is believed to have offered 99 seats to the Congress. But the latter wants 115. The Congress in 2012 won 28 seats. Indicating that things were not working out, the SP had yesterday released its list of 209 candidates. With the RLD also announcing its list of 35 seats and the Congress clearing the names of 140 candidates, a “grand alliance” in UP seems unlikely.

The Congress today put forth three conditions, even as the party’s central election committee (CEC) held its first meeting to finalise candidates for UP — a clear signal to the SP that it was ready to go it alone. 

Party strategists, at a meeting in Delhi late last evening, decided that the SP be told to withdraw all nine candidates on seats represented by the Congress in the Assembly, not to field candidates in the Rae Bareli and Amethi segments and to allot at least 100 seats to the Congress. The CEC is expected to finalise party candidates for the first phase of the UP elections. 

The last date for filing of nominations for the first phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh is January 24.