Lucknow: The Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance ran into rough weather on Friday when the Samajwadi Party released two lists of 210 candidates without waiting for a formal announcement of its alliance with the Congress.
The Samajwadi Party said that there had been no positive response from the Congress regarding the alliance. The party will also release its manifesto on Sunday.
Samajwadi Party vice- president Kiranmoy Nanda said that his party would not give more than 84-85 seats to the Congress which actually should get only 54 seats on the basis of its performance in 2012.
The Samajwadi Party also announced candidates on nine seats that are presently held by the Congress. Mr Nanda said that the Congress had not claimed the sitting seats. He also made it clear that the assembly seats in Amethi and Rae Bareli would remain with Samajwadi Party.
UP minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh told reporters that the Samajwadi Party did not need an alliance and was capable of contesting and winning elections on its own.
The announcement of the list sent the Congress leaders into a huddle in Delhi and UPCC president Raj Babbar who had reached Lucknow in the afternoon, was asked to stay back in the state capital itself.
Talking to reporters he said, “The respect of the party workers is the respect of the party”. He said that the alliance had not yet been called off but declined to comment on the Samajwadi Party naming candidates for the western UP seats that their party holds.
Akhilesh gives Shivpal a ticket
The first list of the Samajwadi Party includes Mr Shivpal Yadav, the estranged uncle of Chief Minister and national president of Samajwadi Party Akh-ilesh Yadav. He has been given a ticket from his traditional Jaswant-nagar seat.
His son Aditya Yadav is not in the list and Karhal in Mainpuri — the seat he wanted to contest from — has been given to another candidate.
The name of Aparna Yadav, younger daughter-in-law of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, also does not figure in the list.
Senior UP minister Mohd Azam Khan is the party candidate form Rampur while his son Abdullah Azam is the candidate from Swar. Nitin Agarwal, son of SP MP Naresh Agarwal is the party candidate from Hardoi.
UP minister Arvind Singh Gope has been given his ticket from Ramnagar in Barabanki, replacing Rakesh Varma, son of SP leader Beni Prasad Varma.
Rakesh Varma has been named as the candidate from Kaiserganj but Mr Beni Prasad Varma told reporters that his son would not contest from Kaiserganj because he had been working in Ramnagar. Rakesh is likely to contest the Ramnagar seat as an independent.
Shivpal loyalists who have been denied tickets include Rampal Yadav, MLA from Sitapur who had openly criticized the chief minister last year and was subsequently expelled.
