Kolkata: Samajwadi Party (SP) national vice-president Kiranmoy Nanda on Sunday said his party, together with the BSP, is strong enough to defeat the BJP in Uttar Pradesh in the upcoming general election and there is no need of an “insignificant” force like the Congress to make it happen. He, however, hinted the SP-BSP alliance might just leave aside the Rae Bareli and Amethi constituencies, represented in the Lok Sabha by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi respectively.
His comments came two days after BSP supremo Mayawati and SP leader Akhilesh Yadav moved closer to finalise a seat-sharing formula, ahead of the Lok Sabha poll. Both the leaders held a meeting in New Delhi on Friday. Nanda felt the Congress was yet to adjust to the mantra of “alliance politics” as it was unwilling to “leave even an inch to allies in states where it is strong, but expects others to share their pound of flesh with it in states where it is a weak force”.
Asked if keeping the Congress out of the alliance in UP would be an advantage for the ruling BJP, he said, “From our past experiences, we can say, in cases where the Congress had fielded candidates against the SP-BSP alliance, we did not face any problem in defeating the BJP. The Congress’s vote share is completely insignificant.
Rather there have been instances where the Congress had not put up its candidate in a seat and the BJP got its vote share.” Nanda cited the examples of the Phulpur and Gorakhpur LS bypolls, where the Congress had fielded candidates against the SP-BSP nominees, but that did not deter the alliance from defeating the BJP. Referring to the recently-held Assembly polls in five states, he said had the Congress worked out an alliance in Rajasthan and MP, the BJP would have faced a complete ouster in the two states.
Did the Congress go for a pre-poll alliance with the SP-BSP in MP and Rajasthan? The answer is no. The Congress’s policy is it will take benefits from everybody, but when it gets an opportunity, it does not want to share it with others,” he said. The ex-fisheries minister of West Bengal during the Left Front regime asserted the SP-BSP combine would be a “gamechanger” in the LS poll in UP, which has 80 seats.