Left to Mulayam Singh Yadav, the late founder and patriarch of the Samajwadi Party, he would never have dreamed of embracing the Congress as an electoral ally. He was, however, not averse to transacting business with the Grand Old Party for self-preservation.
He accepted the Congress’s support for his minority government in Uttar Pradesh in 1991, after the downfall of the V P Singh government and a split in the Janata Dal leading to the emergence of the JD (Socialist) headed by former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar. Yadav went along with Chandra Shekhar. But unlike the stalwart from Ballia, who did not last after the Congress withdrew support in March 1991, the pugilist from Etawah outsmarted Rajiv Gandhi, then the Congress president. Yadav dissolved his Assembly at midnight and offered resignation as Chief Minister to the Governor at the crack of dawn. All because he had learnt through a Congress mole that Gandhi was planning to topple his government and facilitate the imposition of President’s rule in UP before the Lok Sabha polls. The Congress had readied its communiqué for withdrawing support, but was clueless about Yadav’s manoeuvre.
In 2008, Yadav ended his relationship with the Left Front and helped the Congress survive a trust vote in Parliament on the Indo-US civil nuclear pact which the communists opposed tooth and nail. Yadav filled in the numbers on the House floor after the Left pulled its support for the UPA government. Subsequently, the Congress did not give Yadav and Amar Singh, his factotum, the agency they badly sought in Delhi. Yadav paid the Congress back by spurning an alliance it asked for in the 2009 Lok Sabha election. But by putting up a blockbuster showing in UP—its best ever since the 1989 downfall—the Congress was better off by not going with the SP.
Yadav’s son and political heir Akhilesh Yadav, who now heads the SP, jettisoned the Socialists’ deep-seated antipathy towards the Congress and twice sealed electoral pacts with the GOP that yielded mixed outcomes in the 2017 Assembly elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Akhilesh, the CM in 2017, was caught in a bitter family feud to establish his leadership over the SP.
The punchline signifying the Rahul-Akhilesh ‘camaraderie’ said, “UP ko yeh saath pasand hai” (UP likes this duo). But the seat-sharing negotiations were bedevilled by contestations over each party’s ground strength. Mulayam rejected the alliance in 2017 and refused to campaign for his own party. Eventually, of the 403 Assembly seats, the Congress got to contest 105 and the SP 298. Peeved over their shares, the allies put up ‘friendly’ fights against each other that were anything but congenial. By then, the BJP juggernaut was on the road, crushing its opponents. It walked away with 312 seats. The SP and the Congress were estranged thereafter.
By the time the Lok Sabha elections descended in 2024, better sense apparently prevailed on both the Congress and the SP. The Congress had stagnated in UP for a decade, posting a tally of one or two seats. Another such disaster would have spelt near-oblivion in a state that was once its ticket to power at the Centre. For Akhilesh, another reversal might have accentuated the SP’s internal rivalry and thrown up fresh challenges to his leadership.
Both sides initially played hardball before clinching an electoral arrangement. It entailed allocating 17 of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats to the Congress, including Rae Bareli and Amethi, and 63 to the SP. The BJP was shell-shocked when the alliance—treated as non-starter by political observers—won 43 seats and reduced the saffron party’s tally to 33. An analysis by Assembly constituencies showed the SP-Congress led in 220 boroughs.
However, one successful showing does not prove that the alliance is out to sail smooth in the 2027 Assembly polls. On its part, the Congress, despite being bruised and beaten, still fancies UP as its bastion by virtue of holding on to Amethi and Rae Bareli. Although the Gandhis have not said a word, cheerleaders have pitched the Congress’s demand at 200 of the 403 seats—almost asking for half the tickets after occupying just one seat in the legislature with a 2.4 percent vote share. In the 2022 state elections, the SP won 111 seats with a 33 percent vote share. So the discrepancy between the allies is there for all to behold.
The Congress has beamed contradictory signals to its ally through the state leaders it recently appointed. Akhilesh’s bottomline: “For us, it won’t be about the number of seats, but about the seats that can be won. Whoever can win a seat should get it.” It’s a conciliatory message that does not imply that the SP will part with half the seats because Akhilesh has a good idea of the number of “winnable” seats in the Congress’s kitty.
The Gandhis chose Imran Masood, the Saharanpur MP, as the UP unit’s working president and Rajendra Pal Gautam as its central minder. Both are red rags for the SP. Masood claimed he was the “undisputed” leader of Muslims in western UP, and the SP will not brook a challenge to its hold over the minorities. Gautam, who came into the Congress fold from the Aam Aadmi Party in late 2024, insisted that his party should not settle for anything less than 200 seats. However, insiders claimed that the choice of Aradhana Mishra to head UP Congress in place of Ajay Rai was intended to placate the SP, which has a cordial equation with her father and Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tiwari, a veteran politician from the Allahabad region. But when discussions are delicately poised for a prospective conclusion, is the time appropriate to score brownie points?
The SP sent out its own signs to unsettle the Congress. It is working on a smaller but significant party, the Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Apna Dal, whose acronym NISHAD represents the backward caste grouping of fisherfolk inhabiting UP’s riverine swath. The NISHAD party was once an ally of the SP, but is part of the BJP coalition. The SP has also made friendly gestures towards the AAP, which is presently antagonistic towards the Congress.
However, while there are no two ways about which of the two is stronger on the ground—as Wednesday’s closely-contested elections to the legislative council between the SP and BJP demonstrated—the Congress is unlikely to accede a disproportionate number of seats in UP, because its revival in the state is key to reinforcing its pan-India presence.
Radhika Ramaseshan | Columnist and political commentator
(Views are personal)