New Delhi: After the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Congress failed to seal the deal for the nine by-elections in UP following the “unreasonable demand” by the former, no damage was done. The Congress, citing the larger interest of defeating the “divisive forces”, declared that it will not put a candidate on even the two seats of Ghaziabad and Khair (Aligarh) offered by the SP and said it will extend “unconditional support” to its senior alliance partner in the state. Soon after, while SP went ahead and declared its candidates for the Ghaziabad and Khair seats, Congress began forming its coordination committees to help SP and even assigned responsibilities to its MPs and former MLAs.
However, the moot question is whether the Congress district units will sincerely support the SP candidate? Why will the Congress candidates who were planning to contest the election till about a few days ago, now break sweat for the victory of the SP candidate? The case of Phulpur assembly constituency is an example. Congress District President Suresh Yadav filed his nomination from Phulpur seat despite SP declaring three times ex-MLA Mujtaba Siddiqui’s candidature. And although Congress summarily sacked Yadav from the party, the headlines he made were a cause of major embarrassment for the anti-BJP alliance.
Besides, complaints of non-cooperation or inactivity of Congress workers have also been reported from Meerapur. According to some Congress leaders, if SP was leaving only two seats for the party to contest in the bypolls, it should not have been Ghaziabad and Khair, but seats like Phulpur (Prayagraj) and Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar) where party has a substantial base of its own and had better chances of winning. Meanwhile, SP had its own reasons going by Congress’s performance in the 2022 assembly elections.
Congress assures full cooperation
As to Congress inactivity on some seats, it believes that no such thing is happening and that the Congress cadre is disciplined enough to trust the decision of party high command. The Congress UP Chief Ajay Rai has assured the SP leadership of full cooperation despite some hiccups.
As per the Congress State General Secretary Anil Yadav, good coordination and communication is being seen between the leaders of the two parties on all the nine seats going to polls. He further said that while the local Congress leaders are providing all due assistance to the SP candidates, even the SP leaders are coming forward to seek the help of Congress leaders now and their joint political activities are likely to pick up after the festivals.
Even those Congress leaders who were planning to go to Wayanad (Kerala) – where Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi is contesting Lok Sabha election – have been asked to stay put in UP and campaign here.
Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav are thinking
Observers of UP politics believe that while there continues to be misunderstanding and face-off between the state leaders of the Congress and SP, there is a fine bonding between the SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi and the two are making decisions looking at the bigger picture and long term interest of the alliance. Regarding Haryana, Yadav was disappointed with Congress not going for alliance but was also aware that Gandhi had nothing to do with that decision.
As far as seat sharing in Maharashtra is concerned, the three seats which SP was most keen on contesting, have gone to the Sharad Pawar-led faction of NCP and Congress cannot do much about it. With three days still to go for withdrawing the nomination, SP and NCP may still find a compromise.
90 candidates on the 9 seats
There are 90 candidates in the fray for the nine seats going to bypolls in UP. The constituencies include Khair, Kundarki, Majhawan, Sisamau, Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Katehari, Meerapur, Karhal. While there are 14 candidates each in Ghaziabad and Kundarki, there are 13 in Majhawan and 12 each in Phulpur, Katehari and Meerapur. While the clear picture as to who has the edge will only emerge after the end of Diwali festival, BJP looks ahead in the majority of these. Meanwhile, SP does not look to have much trouble in Karhal, Kundarki and Sisamau.
In the 2022 assembly elections, SP and BJP won four each of these while Meerapur was won by Jayant Chaudhary-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). And while RLD contested that election in alliance with the SP, it is now part of BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
After the below par performance in the Lok Sabha where NDA could win only 36 out of 80 seats in UP, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is slogging to reverse the trend. Will he succeed?
