With the Congress yet to start formal negotiations on seat-sharing for the next elections with its new-found ally the Samajwadi Party (SP), the latter has started getting jittery.

This came to fore with SP general secretary Amar Singh terming the delay in seat-sharing talks as “unnecessary”, given that other parties have started announcing their candidates in the SP’s home turf of Uttar Pradesh.

“There is no formal talk (on seat-sharing). I met the Prime Minister and Soniaji last week and I have said that it (seat-sharing talks) is being unnecessarily delayed for long,” said Amar Singh in the capital on Monday. “I have communicated this (need for an early decision) to Soniaji and to Manmohan Singhji and also to Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel,” Amar Singh added.

Congress sources, however, said that the party High Command was “very serious” about the pre-poll alliance with its UPA partners, including the SP. In the past week, AICC general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh Digvijay Singh and UP PCC Chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi were summoned twice by Congress President Sonia Gandhi to discuss the contours of seat-sharing arrangements between the two parties. “The High Command had several preoccupations (with political developments) and because of that there could have been some delay. But she is very serious about pre-poll alliance with the SP. We are going to have a meeting (with the SP) some time this week only,” said a senior Congress leader.

The SP’s restiveness stems from the aggressive poll-posturing undertaken by the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party, which has already announced candidates for most of the seats in UP, while the SP is yet to kick off the process because of the delay in seat-sharing talks with the Congress. The SP camp wants early finalisation of seat-sharing talks with Congress in the interest of kickstarting its poll preparations immediately.