CHANDIGARH: The Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) are exploring a potential alliance with each other for the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana.
Sources said there was a closed-door meeting for half an hour between the two-time former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Mayawati in Delhi on Sunday. Newly elected Haryana Congress President Kumari Selja was also present during the meeting.
It is learnt that the BSP is not keen for an alliance but the new state team of the Congress is hopeful of bringing it on board.
Interestingly on Saturday, when Selja took over as the Haryana Congress chief, she had ruled out an alliance with any political outfit ahead of the polls.
Sources said as the Congress high command refused to accommodate the BSP in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in the assembly elections in these states, Mayawati had subsequently snubbed the Congress time and again.
The meeting gains significance as BSP supremo Mayawati withdrew last week from a pre-poll alliance with the JJP, the breakaway offshoot of the INLD. The JJP had offered 40 seats to the BSP, which it rejected.
In the past 14 months, the BSP had formed short-lived alliances with three regional parties in the state. Before the 25-day-old alliance with the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), the BSP had an alliance with the Loktantra Suraksha Party (LSP) for four months and before the parliamentary elections, it had an alliance with the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) which lasted for nine months.
In the recent Lok Sabha elections in Haryana, the JJP had an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) while the INLD had a pact with the BSP. The Congress and BJP fought the parliamentary elections on their own and the saffron party won all ten Lok Sabha seats in the state.