Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday attacked the Congress by questioning the credibility of the grand old party. Mr. Yadav said that soon after the Madhya Pradesh seat sharing negotiations failed, he came to realise that the newly formed Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) Opposition bloc is only intended for the 2024 general election.
Mr. Yadav cautioned the INDIA bloc parties that if elections would be fought with such a confusion, it would not result in success as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a very organised party.
“INDIA alliance is for India’s elections, talks will be held when the country’s elections come. The BJP is a large and very organised party, hence there should not be any confusion in any party to compete with it. If you contest elections with confusion, you will not be successful,” said Mr. Yadav, while speaking to reporters in Shahjahanpur.
“If the Congress behaves likes this [referring to the Madhya Pradesh talks], who will ally with them,” said the SP president raising doubts about the credibility of the grand old party.
The Congress and the SP, partners in the INDIA alliance, are fielding candidates against each other on 20 assembly segments in Madhya Pradesh after the seat sharing negotiations failed. The Congress released the first list of 144 candidates on October 15. Within hours, the SP released the names of its nine candidates, of five would directly contest with the Congress candidates. On October 18, the SP released list of another 22 candidates, out of which 13 are in contest with the Congress.
The SP claims it had presence in areas of Madhya Pradesh that adjoin U.P., and back its argument with the past assembly election results where it won seven seats in the 2003 Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha election, four seats in the 1998 Vidhan Sabha election, one seat in 2008 and 2018 assembly elections each.
In a related development, U.P. Congress president Ajay Rai took a personal swipe at Mr. Yadav for humiliating his own father Mulayam Singh Yadav, and added that everyone knows who stands with the BJP in the recent byelection in Uttarakhand.
“The person who failed to respect his own father [Mulayam Singh Yadav] was humiliated from public platform, how can he respect a normal worker,” Mr. Rai said. Mr. Yadav has also made personal comments on the U.P. Congress president for making provocative statement regarding the SP.
