War of words begins as Cong-SP seat talks stuck

New Delhi, September 16 : Seat-sharing talks between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party (SP) have hit a roadblock with the two parties refusing to concede any ground on their claims on about a dozen seats. After their second round of talks on September 8, the two sides had decided to formally exchange their “final list” of seats, including the contentious ones on which they wouldn’t compromise, on September 13 and meet two days later to take a final call on it. Neither has the lists been exchanged, nor has the meeting taken place.

Top leadership of the two parties, including Congress president Sonia Gandhi and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, are now likely to sort out the differences, according to Congress sources. So far, the negotiations have been led by Rahul Gandhi, Digvijay Singh and Rita Bahuguna Joshi from the Congress, while the SP interlocutors include Amar Singh and Ram Gopal Yadav.

In the last meeting, the Congress had floated the idea of “friendly contests” on some seats, but the SP refused. The contentious seats include Farrukhabad, Pratapgarh, Mora-dabad, Kushinagar, Rampur, Gonda, Fatehpur Sikri, and Domariaganj among others.

The Congress, which had initially laid claims on 30 seats, later came down to 26, while the SP, which had initially offered 12 seats, conceded about half-dozen more during the two rounds of negotiations, said Congress sources. The ruling party at the Centre is, however, reluctant to settle for less than 25 seats on the plea that delimitation of constituencies had changed the “ground situation” in favour of Congress.

While these irritants held up the seat-sharing talks in Uttar Pradesh, Amar Singh declared on Monday that the SP would have no truck with the Congress in Madhya Pradesh because the latter had poached 4 SP MLAs in the state. Digvijay Singh, however, refuted it on Tuesday, saying that the Congress had no role in it. “They have resigned on their own,” maintained the AICC general secretary. Asked if these SP defectors could be considered for Congress tickets, he replied, “May be.”

The SP had earlier also sought an alliance with the Congress in MP, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and other states. To this proposal, Rahul Gandhi had assured the SP leaders that he would convey it to the Congress president.

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