Samajwadi Party leaders seek bigger pie in seat-sharing for Maharashtra polls

Mumbai: Upbeat after the Lok Sabha performance in Uttar Pradesh, leaders of the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Friday said they expect that the I.N.D.I.A. allies will give them the respect they deserve in the seat-sharing for the Maharashtra assembly elections.

In an event organised to felicitate newly-elected SP MPs, the Maharashtra unit of the party sounded the bugle for the assembly elections, due in October.

The Samajwadi Party's Bhiwandi East MLA Rais Shaikh accused the BJP, Shiv Sena (without specifying the faction) and Congress-NCP of doing injustice to his party's workers.

The constituents of the Opposition's MVA alliance in Maharashtra, including the Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (SP) and Congress, are also part of the larger, national-level I.N.D.I.A. grouping.

"We are becoming partners now. Today the foundation of INDIA alliance rests on the Samajwadi Party. If Akhilesh Yadav ji says something, no INDIA leader can refuse. We will get the seats we deserve. We want the respect we deserve," Shaikh said.

Seat-sharing talks have started, he added.

"We are just two MLAs (himself and Abu Azmi) but we can outmatch 100 MLAs...our ten MLAs will overwhelm 288 (the strength of Maharashtra assembly)," he said.

While the SP, part of the INDIA grouping, did not contest any Lok Sabha seat in Maharashtra, it won 37 seats in Uttar Pradesh, delivering a blow to the BJP.

In Maharashtra it has only two MLAs, both from the Muslim community.

Awadhesh Prasad, SP MP from Faizabad, said the party's `Pichda, Dalit, Alpsankhyank (PDA)' social engineering formula should be implemented across the country.

"No government can be formed here without the support of the SP," Prasad said.

Azmi, who represents Shivajinagar constituency in Mumbai, said the party's morale was very high in Maharashtra post the Lok Sabha polls.

North Indians should not be challenged or else they will give a befitting reply, Azmi said.

"I don't want to sour my mouth by taking his name. How many shops and vehicles were vandalised by him?....Make me home minister once, I will handle them in such a way that they will never forget," he said.

While Azmi did not name anybody, the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena had launched a campaign against the North Indians in 2008 which turned violent.

Earlier in the day, Samajwadi Party MPs visited the famous Siddhivinayak temple and Mani Bhavan Gandhi Museum here. They also visited Chaityabhoomi in Dadar, the place where Dr B R Ambedkar was cremated.