Riding on its stellar performance in the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, where it won 37 of the 80 seats, the Samajwadi Party (SP) is now eyeing 12 seats for the upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra, and is hoping ally Congress will accommodate it as part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition.
“Party president Akhilesh Yadav has already given the list (of seats) to the top Congress leadership,” Maharashtra SP chief and three-time Mankhurd Shivaji Nagar MLA Abu Azmi said, expressing the hope that apart from preventing division of Opposition votes, the alliance would help the SP to enough votes for “national party status”.
Notably, the SP has shown interest in contesting the Raver and Amravati seats, where the Congress has sitting MLAs, citing “large minority presence” and claiming “strong anti-incumbency” in the constituencies. The other seats the party is eyeing include Mankhurd Shivaji Nagar, Bhiwandi East, Bhiwandi Central, Malegaon Central, Byculla, Versova, Dhule City, Aurangabad East, Anushakti Nagar and Karanja.
However, the SP state unit remains wary about past “betrayals”. In a note sent to its central leadership attached with the list of seats, the Maharashtra unit recalled that the Congress and NCP in the past had begun negotiations but “backtracked at the last moment”, leaving the SP without time to prepare for the polls and finalise its candidates.
“Despite such betrayals, the SP in Maharashtra supported the MVA government from its inception in 2019 to its fall in 2022. In the recent Lok Sabha polls too, the party cadre helped all 48 MVA candidates in the state and worked on the ground to ensure their victory, despite not being in the contest itself,” the note stated.
The SP note cites an example from the 2019 Assembly polls, when it was offered three seats – Mankhurd Shivaji Nagar, Bhiwandi East and Aurangabad East – by the then Congress and undivided NCP alliance, as against its demand of seven constituencies.
Eventually, the SP contested seven seats on its own and won two. The SP points out that it won Bhiwandi East despite the Congress fielding a candidate there barely 30 minutes before nominations closed.
The SP says it was left similarly “high and dry” in 2014 too after the Congress offered seven seats and then pulled out of the alliance.
The SP has, meanwhile, ramped up its activities in the state ahead of the polls, especially in Bhiwandi East, where it has opened two offices. Last month, it organised a Vijay Sabha (calling it ‘Jashn-e-Fateh’), themed “Uttar pradesh me hui jeet humari, ab hai Maharashtra ki baari (We won in Uttar Pradesh, now it’s time to take Maharashtra)”, in Mumbai, where the party felicitated its 37 newly-elected MPs from Uttar Pradesh.
Earlier this month, Akhilesh too was in Mumbai, where he held meetings with state leaders. The SP is next planning a meeting in Mankhurd Shivaji Nagar on August 16.
On the other hand, Congress’ Maharashtra incharge Ramesh Chennithala said parties like the SP, CPI(M), CPI are with the MVA. “No discussion on seat-sharing has happened so far. We will first hold discussions with the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) and Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and then with other parties. We will definitely talk to the SP and other parties and consider them for (an alliance) in the Assemly elections,” he said.
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