Truce or not, Akhilesh Yadav continues to push for a grand alliance in Uttar Pradesh with the Congress, RLD and the JD(U). According to sources, the Samajwadi Party leader has agreed to give more seats to the partners.
According to sources, amid fierce family feud, Akhilesh continued pursuing the agenda of forming an alliance of anti-BJP forces minus the Bahujan Samaj Party. He was in touch with leaders of Congress and other parties.
The sources say that the SP has agreed to increase the number of seats to be allocated to the alliance partners. Earlier, the SP had made it clear that the party will not give more than 100 seats in all to its alliance partners. Now, the party has agreed to give 20 more seats to them.
According to the emerging formula, the Congress may contest 80 seats, the RLD 25-28 and the JD(U) 7-8 seats. Remaining seats will go to smaller parties.
Except the Congress and the SP, none has presence across the state. The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) headed by Ajit Singh is limited to western UP and the JD(U) has some influence in eastern UP. Also, these parties have their main bases among a particular caste in an area. The RLD has a Jat base in western UP and the JD(U) has some base among Kurmis of eastern UP.
The SP has also approached smaller parties which represent local social bases. The party is in touch with the Poorvanchal People’s Party, Nishad Party and the Peace Party. All of them have some base in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
“We are in touch with the Congress and the SP,” Poorvanchal People’s Party leader Vinod Singh told DH.
Published 10 January 2017, 20:08 IST