Samajwadi Party wants AAP to accommodate it in Delhi as reciprocal gesture

Ravi S Singh
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, November 26

The Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav has put pressure on the Aam Aadmi Party to enter into an alliance with his party and share seats with it in future assembly elections in Delhi.

Yadav wants AAP to adjust SP as a reciprocal gesture if the former is accommodated in the SP-led alliance for the upcoming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh. Yadav is believed to have set such a condition on AAP during his meeting with AAP Rajya Sabha MP and in charge of Uttar Pradesh Sanjay Singh in Lucknow on Wednesday. The two leaders had met to explore the possibility of an alliance between their two parties in Uttar Pradesh.

SP and AAP are major players in the politics of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, respectively. AAP is in power in the National Capital Territory of Delhi.

The SP is heading an alliance of about four smaller parties and has left doors ajar to rope in more political outfits to present a challenge to the ruling BJP in Uttar Pradesh.

A source said on condition of anonymity that when Singh pitched for the alliance between the two parties on the ground to avoid splitting of non-BJP votes to defeat the Saffron party in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav sought the former’s views with regard to Delhi when the Assembly elections take place in future.

Yadav is said that AAP must adjust SP in Delhi as a reciprocal gesture if it was accommodated electorally in Uttar Pradesh. This would help in strengthening the opposition unit to defeat the BJP nationally, sources said.

Also, Yadav is said to be hesitant with the list of 25 seats put forth by Singh to Yadav to be left for AAP in an alliance.

The meeting between the two, however, remained inconclusive.

While Yadav told Singh that he would discuss AAP’s proposal for the alliance in his party forum, Singh assured to take up the relationship between the two parties in Delhi with his party’s national Convener and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Sources close to Yadav said in the present circumstances the possibility of an alliance between the two parties in Uttar Pradesh is bleak.

AAP is trying to open its account of seats in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Kejriwal had visited the State recently and performed prayers at the birthplace of Lord Ram in an obvious move to signal its soft-Hindutva stance to curry favour with the Hindu community to counter the BJP.