Congress-SP seat-sharing talk ends amid hope

The seat-sharing dialogue between the two pre-poll alliance political parties: Congress and Samajwadi Party ended inconclusively here on Monday. Despite mutual acceptance on major part of the Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh the final out come of the extended coalition postponed to the next meet on Sep 8. Both the parties, which kicked off their talk on an optimistic note agreed to conclude the process by this month.

The first phase of dialogue saw the duo reaching on understanding over seat-sharing arrangements for non-controversial seats, but could not sort out their apathy over some seats including Rampur and Farrukhabad. The two constituencies witnessed the tough fight between the SP and Congress candidates. SP's Jayaprada and Chandra Bhooshan defeated narrowly the Congress' candidates Begum Noor Bano alias Mehtab Zamani Begum and Salman Khursheed's wife respectively in close contests in the previous parliamentary elections.

This time Khursheed himself is gearing up to contest Lok Sabha polls, but the SP is not looking to sacrifice the winning seat for the Congress. Congress also wants to bat for the SP's rebellious leader Raj Babbar and Beni Prasad Verma respectively, which came closer to the Congress party subsequently.

There is an agreement on who will contest a majority of seats. However, there is some disagreement on a few seats, admits Congress UP functionary and general secretary Digvijay Singh who says, “on those seats upon which we could not meet agreement, we will hold further discussions.” AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi was assisted with Congress functionaries Digvijay Singh and Rita Bahuguna Joshi during meeting with SP, which was represented by Amar Singh and Ramgopal Yadav.

The parley held in an amicable environment and both the sides agreed on seat-sharing over a significant number of constituencies except some, which sought the next round of discussions.

The Congress has just nine Lok Sabha seats from the state in comparison to the Samajwadi Party which has 39. The Congress trio, however, categorically stated to the SP leaders that the outcome of the 2004 Lok Sabha and 2007 Assembly elections could not be the sole criterion for seat sharing.

Digvijay Singh though refused to tell the details of the parley, but, the sources say, Mr. Singh argued, the sharing of the seats should be according to 2009 parliamentary polls, taking note of the alteration in the character of the Lok Sabha constituencies as an outcome of the extensive delimitation exercise.

Out of the total 80 seats, the Congress wanted to fight for 25-30 seats where as the SP was not willing to battle for less than 60 seats. A Samajwadi source said Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh feel the Congress should not ask for more than 15 or 17 seats.

The Congress and SP also said after finalisation of the seats in Uttar Pradesh, the two sides also start working on sharing of seats in other states.

Once bitter rival, the Samajwadi Party shedding their antipathy came as a rescuer for the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance after the Left withdrew support and subsequently the two-Congress and SP-entered into mutual understanding of fighting 2009 Lok Sabha elections together.