While the Congress and Samajwadi Party agreed to “joint campaigning” in Uttar Pradesh for the next Lok Sabha elections at their first meeting to discuss seat-sharing on Monday, the news from the talks is likely to give many heavyweights in the two parties sleepless nights.

Among the Congress candidates the SP said no to were UPCC chief Salman Khursheed for the Farrukhabad Lok Sabha seat, Raj Babbar for Fatehpur Sikri, Beni Prasad Verma for Gonda, Begum Noor Bano for Moradabad or Rampur, P L Punia (former principal secretary to the UP Chief Minister) for Barabanki, Ratna Singh for Pratapgarh, and R P N Singh for Kushinagar.

SP leaders Amar Singh and Ram Gopal Yadav, who represented the party at the talks, would have nothing to do with former party colleagues Raj Babbar and Beni Prasad Verma. The party also wants to field its own candidates on other contentious seats, for instance Jaya Prada from Rampur, Baleshwar Yadav from Kushinagar, and Chandra Bhoosan Singh from Farrukhabad.

“Among the two we may agree on Raj Babbar because he is a winnable candidate, but we don’t see any chance for Verma,” confided a senior SP leader.

Not to be outdone by the SP, which did not hesitate to flaunt its “big brotherly status” in UP, Congress interlocutors including Digvijay Singh, Rahul Gandhi and Rita Bahuguna Joshi emphasised on “clean image of the candidates” apart from “winnability” to be the determinant factors for selection, according to sources. This may have been directed at Raja Bhaiyya’s confidant Akshay Pratap Singh, who is eyeing Pratapgarh.

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