SP-Congress pact: Deal is done but a hard road ahead

One of the sticky points in the Samajwadi Party-Congress deal for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, which was ironed out at the eleventh hour

One of the sticky points in the Samajwadi Party-Congress deal for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, which was ironed out at the eleventh hour, was the seat allocation in Amethi and Rae Bareli parliamentary constituencies, the pocket borough of the Sonia Gandhi family. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was adamant on her party getting all fi ve Assembly segments in Amethi. But new SP president and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav was not ready to give any in Amethi.

Their brinkmanship almost destroyed the prospect of an alliance before Congress president Sonia Gandhi deputed Ahmad Patel to staple it up with some give and take. In the fi nal deal, the Congress got three on fi ve in Amethi and two on five in Rae Bareli, splitting the cake proportionately.

Overall, the SP took 298 seats and gave the Congress 105. The alliance also agreed on having Akhilesh as its chief ministerial face. Both the SP and the Congress know they need each other since Akhilesh has to combat anti-incumbency. Also there was the fear of a split in the Muslim vote bank had the alliance failed to materialise.

Yet both Priyanka and Akhilesh drove a hard bargain to maximise purchase. Had Sonia not stepped in, the deal could well have been scuppered. Akhilesh perhaps is a little cocky after snatching the party’s control from his father Mulayam Singh and showing uncle Shivpal Yadav and Amar Singh their place. However, he ought to realise that a coup within the family and the battle of the ballot are two different things.

That he pulled off the fi rst without much sweat does not automatically mean he can do an encore at the hustings. If he thinks UP is in his pocket, he is totally mistaken. While the Congress is now busy spinning Priyanka as the master strategist in UP, her my-way-or-the-highway threat failed to work. She now perhaps understands that tough-as-nails Akhilesh is anything but ‘mulayam’.

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